The police are cracking down. Are the going after drug dealers who operate with impunity in some neighborhoods? No. Are they going after litterbugs who make neighborhoods look like third-world villages after the tsunami hits? Oh, heavens no. They are going after people who park in handicapped spaces:
Starting Jan. 1, fines for drivers who illegally park in the spaces, as well as those who use the blue rear-view mirror placards without authorization, will jump hundreds of dollars and in some cases also result in suspended drivers’ licences.
Beginning the day after Thanksgiving and continuing through the end of the year, Secretary of State Police have been targeting shopping mall parking lots searching for offenders before the new law takes effect.
In just a few hours Thursday, Sgt. Corey Coffrin handed out five citations at The Shoppes at Grand Prairie and said abuse of disabled parking places is rampant around the state.
What a steaming pile of horse crap. I’m coming up on a half century of life, and I have never, ever, ever seen a parking lot in which every single handicapped parking space was filled, legally or illegally.
I have, however, been denied the right to engage in Interstate Commerce because I couldn’t find a legal space to park at smaller strip malls because all the non-handicapped spaces were filled while every single handicapped space was empty. Not wanting to pay a $200 fine, I didn’t and what common sense says is the appropriate thing to do: Take one of the unused spaces. After all, it’s one thing to set aside spaces for people to provide equal access. It’s quite another to deny ME access just in case someone else might want to shop.
This crackdown has nothing to do with protecting handicapped people. This is all about raising money.
Feh.
I suggest next time the Journal Star delves into this subject, instead of printing a handout from the Secretary of State’s office, they assign a reporter to actually place a few calls to small business owners, architects and contractors to find out what a hassle it is to build a place of business on a small lot when the law requires them to set aside parking spaces that will hardly ever be used by paying customers.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Handicap spaces aren’t being abused? All those spaces not filled? Pfft… you need to get out more. Illinois’ standard for being ‘disabled’ is a pretty low threshhold. Heck you probably qualify on account of your weight (note picture in earlier post). Dare I say.. obesity is a disability!?!? Yes indeed it is according to the government.
I have seen plenty of parking lots with their handicap spaces filled.. and plenty of those cars being used by folks that I would hardly consider handicapped.
You are correct tho that it is more about money than concern about abuse of the handicap privilege. The abuses have been going on for years n years.
So, basically, if the PJS shared your perspective, they would be doing a better job? How is it that you can equate litterbugs with drug dealers, but dismiss an equally trivial matter as such?
I cannot count the number of times while shopping with my father who was handicapped that we ran across non-handicapped people parked in spaces reserved for handicapped. Many times the spaces had people in the car waiting for someone to come out of a store. I have never once been denied access to a store in Peoria because there was no parking available. I do not mind walking past 10 or 15 stores in a strip mall to get to the one I came to patronize, sometimes I even see something in the window on the way that interests me, I know that seems very old fashioned and not a napervillian way to shop, but hey I am a small town dude and not too busy and important to take a few extra steps.
Hmm, sounds like you just don’t want to walk.
Yeah, I have to say the handicapped spaces don’t bother me a bit. The extra walk does me good.
I like Seinfeld’s observation: “How do they handle handicapped parking at the Special Olympics? They can’t all park up front.”
A bill was passed in the late 1990’s allowing citizens to be trained to enforce the handicapped parking ordinances.
I wonder if Peoria has taken advantage of it.
How many years does it take for us to wise up? JUST WHY did all the doctors suddenly move out to Dunlap, to raise their families? And just why is OSF creating a big facility out there?…..while the rest of us breathe in bad fumes daily, in downtown Peoria? How long will these polluters be given free-rein to damage our children???? How long will we suffer our children (and ourselves) this way??? This is CRAZY!!! Raise up and stand up for your rights. Do your children have a God-given right to be polluted and brain-damaged? I think not!! Let’s do something, NOW!!! Jenny
sorry bill, you are wrong.
hey, one time out of a milloin isnt bad.
[...] I’m getting a lot of static from my post about the crackdown on handicapped parking. Most of the replies were along the lines of “you’re kidding, right?” and “gee, you must hate to walk.” [...]
[...] As I’ve written before, the problem of able-bodied people using handicapped parking spots is vastly over hyped. On one hand, we have a loud and active special interest group that demands the government show its love by constantly increasing fines and over-enforcing the rules. On the other, we have a state agency looking to bring in more revenue. [...]
wow….laaaaaazzzzzzyyyyyy.
You could use the exercise, bud.
True. But it NOT the point. It’s about government assuming ever increasing powers to regulate and tax the citizens.
WTF, Bill? Following your logic, parking tickets, seat belt tickets, littering citations, noise ordinance tickets, et al, should not be enforced because the problem is not about felony crime, and only used to raise money.
Maybe if more people(pseudo media folks, for instance) had jobs that included tax money being taken out, cities wouldn’t have to resort to such tactics. Have a twinkie and shut the fuck up.
I think Robby is upsety. Have a timeouty. Seriously – keep it clean.
Robbieeeeee….time to come in now…….
[...] Peoria Pundit Bill Dennis has been complaining about handicapped parking spaces for a while. This prompted C.J. Summers of the Peoria Chronicle to complain about another way the government makes things worse by trying too hard to help. In this case, it’s a new law mandating that all programs — including church service broadcasts — include closed captioning: Now, I’m all for closed captioning. But the problem is that it’s expensive. The first thing you have to do is transcribe your program. You can do it yourself (labor-intensive) or hire a professional stenographer (or “stenocaptioner”) at $1.50 to $3 per minute, or $90-$180 per one-hour show. Then you have to get it into the video stream using an encoder. Encoder services can run you $300-$400 per one-hour show. Alternatively, you could buy encoding equipment and do it yourself, but then you have your own labor costs, plus equipment that can cost as much as $20,000. Your closed-captioning cost is now almost as much as the fee you’re charged to broadcast the program on a local TV station. So what do you think smaller operations are going to do? Stop broadcasting their programs, of course. Or at least remove them from some smaller markets, like one show in New York is doing. [...]