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Was this woman running a "wheelchair scam?"

Was this woman running a "wheelchair scam?"

Old Oct 11, 2012, 10:05 am
  #76  
 
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On the subject of improper use of "Handicapped Parking Placards" - genuine handicapped persons are the greatest violators of the illegal use of these placards as they frequently lend them to able bodied friends and family members for their use even though the handicapped person does not accompany that person in the car. This action is illegal and surely dwarfs the problem of the small number of fake wheel chair users at airports. I read of a recent case of such a person who was using a borrowed placard in Washington D.C. who was complaining loudly about how her car had been towed from a handicapped parking zone because President Obama was speaking nearby - and she couldn't find her car - It was determined that she was not handicapped and had broken the law. She had borrowed the placard.
Judge one - judge all.
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Old Oct 11, 2012, 11:13 pm
  #77  
 
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Originally Posted by rmiller774
On the subject of improper use of "Handicapped Parking Placards" - genuine handicapped persons are the greatest violators of the illegal use of these placards as they frequently lend them to able bodied friends and family members for their use even though the handicapped person does not accompany that person in the car. This action is illegal and surely dwarfs the problem of the small number of fake wheel chair users at airports. I read of a recent case of such a person who was using a borrowed placard in Washington D.C. who was complaining loudly about how her car had been towed from a handicapped parking zone because President Obama was speaking nearby - and she couldn't find her car - It was determined that she was not handicapped and had broken the law. She had borrowed the placard.
Judge one - judge all.
It reads like you saying that because one woman broke the law with a fraudulently used permit that that justifies accusing "genuine handicapped persons" of mass fraud.

Can you offer any evidence to back up this sweeping accusation beyond a single third hand anecdote?
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Old Oct 12, 2012, 7:26 am
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The Los Angeles area has seen quite a bit of abuse. The LA Times has run articles about it. Here's one: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may...rking-20110522
"... it was one official, Vito Scattaglia, the deputy chief of investigations for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, who stated, "With the emphasis on fraudulent use ... when we go out, typically on average it's in the area of a 30 to 40 percent violation rate."

"...The reactions of drivers can be telling, investigators say. Magdalene Osherenko, a driver cited during the recent sting in Beverly Hills, became agitated and tried to grab a placard registered to her mother from the DMV investigator who had confiscated it. "I think it's not fair what you're doing," she told investigators. "You're in Beverly Hills. I'm going to take this up with the Beverly Hills Police Department."

"We're state of California," officer David Wisansky told her.

Another driver cited by DMV investigators in Beverly Hills had just emerged from a Camden Drive fitness center to her expired meter. She told officers that she had earlier dropped her mother at a doctor's office, and her mother confirmed that via cellphone. Nonetheless, an investigator confiscated the placard, saying the woman had "personally garnered a benefit" by using it to park for free while she exercised..."
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Old Oct 12, 2012, 9:51 am
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Originally Posted by mules
The Los Angeles area has seen quite a bit of abuse. The LA Times has run articles about it. Here's one: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may...rking-20110522
"... it was one official, Vito Scattaglia, the deputy chief of investigations for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, who stated, "With the emphasis on fraudulent use ... when we go out, typically on average it's in the area of a 30 to 40 percent violation rate."

"...The reactions of drivers can be telling, investigators say. Magdalene Osherenko, a driver cited during the recent sting in Beverly Hills, became agitated and tried to grab a placard registered to her mother from the DMV investigator who had confiscated it. "I think it's not fair what you're doing," she told investigators. "You're in Beverly Hills. I'm going to take this up with the Beverly Hills Police Department."

"We're state of California," officer David Wisansky told her.

Another driver cited by DMV investigators in Beverly Hills had just emerged from a Camden Drive fitness center to her expired meter. She told officers that she had earlier dropped her mother at a doctor's office, and her mother confirmed that via cellphone. Nonetheless, an investigator confiscated the placard, saying the woman had "personally garnered a benefit" by using it to park for free while she exercised..."
Don't judge - I had a herniated disk which caused excruciating pain. I had a script for 120 Oxycontin a month (4 per day) but I didnt take more than per day as they affected my ability to think clearly so I used cold packs for 2 hours before getting out of bed.

I found the only person who made an impact on my back was a personal trainer at a gym more than the physical therapists. I used handicapped parking at the gym because was not able to walk far. I also saw 2 regulars at the same time slot who were in wheelchairs. They couldnt use the second floor running track in wheelchair but they did do a lot of upper body exercise. Often I couldnt get into my car to bend enough to get into the car and on a several of occasions I had to put the top down to get into the car. Not fun if it is raining. I swapped my 2 seater Benz for my wifes SUV after the second soaking wet entrance.

So seeing a handicapped parker at a gym does not mean a scammer and handicapped people go to the gym to remain physically fit. Never judge another unless you know the full story
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Old Oct 12, 2012, 10:53 am
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I would have no trouble with a disk injury having a parking permit but that is not the point of the article. In the article it clearly states that the women were using someone else's permit for their own convenience.
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Old Oct 12, 2012, 11:06 am
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Many pain centers and physical therapists work with or even at gyms to help patients through their recovery routine. This is because gyms have more equipment than pain centers and therapy facilities do, so there is easier access without much waiting. The patient then can safely continue the exercises on equipment he/she is familiar with.
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Old Oct 12, 2012, 8:11 pm
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CD Yes, mass fraud. I think your use of the words "mass fraud" perfectly describes what is happening. Do a simple Yahoo or Google search and you will find numerous threads describing the enormous extent of this problem nationwide but especially in California as mules post explained (immediately following your post).
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Old Oct 12, 2012, 10:16 pm
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In California, the use of a handicapped parking space isn't the only enticement for misuse. The permit allows you to park at any metered spot and not pay the meter (aka FREE). The intent, which was really great, was to make it more convenient for people who don't need a curb cut to access the sidewalks while doing errands or whatever.

Convenience + $$$ = Temptation
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Old Oct 13, 2012, 10:06 am
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Originally Posted by reamworks
Fine, then! Get him a wheelchair, but board him last (on WN) and _insist_ (for everyone's own safety!) that he's' escorted off the plane last, in a wheelchair.
Do you mean board this one guy last, or everyone in a wheelchair last? I don't think that that is the best solution for everyone. Also, real wheelchair users, such as myself, get off the plane last anyways.
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Old Oct 13, 2012, 9:10 pm
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Originally Posted by rmiller774
CD Yes, mass fraud. I think your use of the words "mass fraud" perfectly describes what is happening. Do a simple Yahoo or Google search and you will find numerous threads describing the enormous extent of this problem nationwide but especially in California as mules post explained (immediately following your post).
What I continue to find offensive is your assumption that the misuse is done with the knowledge and consent of the legitimate owner of the placard. If you choose to keep repeating the accusation of fraud, it's up to you to support your statement with evidence and not up to me to hunt for it.
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Old Oct 13, 2012, 10:30 pm
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CD You make a very good argument.
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Old Oct 14, 2012, 1:14 am
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Originally Posted by CDTraveler
What I continue to find offensive is your assumption that the misuse is done with the knowledge and consent of the legitimate owner of the placard. If you choose to keep repeating the accusation of fraud, it's up to you to support your statement with evidence and not up to me to hunt for it.
The fallacy in this argument is your assumption that the "legitimate owner of the placard" actually is qualified to hold a placard. I spent some of my summer helping with data collection for a study to test this assumption. The results (preliminary) are sobering.

First, some background information:

(1) In many states, 10% (or more) of drivers now hold placards. This number has skyrocketed, with increases of 200-300% over the last decade. You be the judge of how likely it is that (a) such a large portion of the population has severe mobility impairments, and (b) that the rate of mobility impairments grew at such an astounding rate over the last decade.

(2) There are no uniform criteria for placard issuance across the country. Instead, states set their own criteria, which in some cases can be very lax, and in other cases can be rather stringent. This is also true for administration and enforcement (e.g., validity, who issues, what is checked, who enforces, etc).

(3) Virtually all placards nationwide are issued solely based on a driver's application with a physician's signature. This leaves room for abuse and fraud. Be, know, or sweettalk a doctor (or in many states, PA, nurse, physical therapist, or any number of other healthcare providers) into signing your application, and DMV will issue a placard without further investigation. Many states will process applications without as much as making sure that the form was actually signed by a doctor. In my home state, Oregon, until 2010, the form required nothing but a "provider's" signature. No address, license number, etc. Only in response to massive fraud (i.e., applicants forging doctor's signatures), DMV now requires provider license number etc. However, to date this is not cross-referenced against any database. Many states are even more lax, and with great likelihood anyone reading this thread, whether disabled or not, could just walk into a DMV office tomorrow and successfully obtain a placard.

(4) There is not a lot of reliable research out there on placard abuse. A lot of the literature still focuses on yesterday's problem, namely people without placards parking in handicap spots. Today's abusers have their own, "legitimate" placards. However, some troubling data points emerge from the literature:

(a) As mentioned by another poster, most cities will grant free and unlimited meter parking to placard holders. A study from Seattle shows that 30-35% of downtown parking spots are taken up by placard holders during working hours. Do you really think all these people are disabled? A study from Portland puts this figure at 25-30%, and an observational study from LA shows that several blocks with $4/hr parking have 82% of their meter time consumed by "handicapped" parkers.

(b) A comparison of state data yields surprising results. In rural areas, where there is little benefit from free parking to be gained, there are significantly fewer placards per 100 motorists (to the tune of 30-50% less) than in urban areas. Odd, huh?

Given this background information, a researcher at a local university decided to investigate the placard phenomenon, and I helped with the data collection. If you spend a lot of time with "disability advocates", you will know that it's not en vogue to question anyone's assertion of disability. "Many disabilities are not visible" is a typical response. Yes, that's very true, but there are also many disabilities that don't impact mobility, and thus don't qualify for a placard. Specifically, in the state of Oregon, there are three criteria for a placard:

(i) A person who has severely limited mobility because of paralysis or the loss of use of some or all of the person’s legs or arms;
(ii) A person who is affected by loss of vision or substantial loss of visual acuity or visual field beyond correction; or
(iii) A person who has any other disability that prevents the person from walking without the use of an assistive device or that causes the person to be unable to walk more than 200 feet.

What we did in our study was go out and interview placard holders who were parked in handicap spots. The survey contained a dozen questions about handicap parking, including "I often have a hard time finding an open parking spot," "I see many people parked in handicap spots who don't look disabled," etc. (5-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree). Not surprisingly, we had great agreement with all the hard to find/too many faker questions. But what we were really interested was packaged into the "demographic" items at the end. In addition to birth year and gender, we asked if the person uses an assistive device, is unable to walk 200 feet, etc.

Clearly, everybody who has a legitimate placard should have said yes to one of these questions, correct? Guess what percentage actually stated that one of the criteria applied to them? Just under 20%!

Yes, there are limitations to the study; a mailed survey would have been more generalizable, but DMV wanted nothing to do with us. But we spoke to over 600 people who actually parked in handicap spots. (One can only assume that the number of "fakers" would have been greater if we had spoken to the free downtown parking crowd, many of whom might feel guilty when parking in handicapped spots ... although many of the very able-bodied users I interviewed didn't seem to be troubled by taking spots away from "other" disabled people). Definitely something to think about, no? (I will post a link once a report has been published).

Another component of the study is ongoing. It involves providers who sign placard applications. Thus far, we have 30 interviews completed. Do you want to guess what percentage of them actually knew the legal requirements for a placard in Oregon? Not a single one (roughly half a dozen were close, the rest was way off). They sign these applications based on their own judgment, but have no idea what they're certifying. And they often hand out placards like candy.

Now, I don't want to make any FTer feel bad. I don't know the requirements in other posters' particular states, or whether they'd qualify under Oregon's rules. However, what we found in our study is that the vast majority of placards in circulation are frivolous. This is not a matter of forging a placard, or borrowing grandma's, it's people who have a "legitimate" placard but don't qualify for it.

And the results of this massive fraud are devastating for people like me. Only 2% of parking spots (slightly less in large lots) are handicap accessible. Most malls or stores now have them taken up by fakers practically round the clock, and it's often impossible for me to get out of the car (I'm a paraplegic and need the access aisle). I end up having to return home or park way in the back of the lot, where I can occupy 1 1/2 spaces. States urgently have to do something to curb abuse, and likely also designate significantly more spots.

Last edited by jenpdx; Oct 14, 2012 at 1:19 am
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Old Oct 14, 2012, 6:17 pm
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Since the thread is going that way... Yesterday, I was parked at Montgomery Mall in Maryland. I watched a woman park in the disabled spot. When she got out, my jaw dropped. She was in tip-top physical condition. I could tell by the tight clothes she was wearing. She could have been, or indeed may be, a model. She got out and walked in on high heels. I started wondering what hidden disability she has, when she came back, sort of running on her high heels, to get something she forgot. She then rushed back in. She was definitely using someone else's tag to park there. Maybe she can only walk 200 feet in the high heels. That must have been the reason for the disabled tag. My bad.
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Old Oct 15, 2012, 3:27 pm
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Olympians use disabled parking spaces

Shortly before the London Olympics (not paralympics) we had to meet someone at London Heathrow - most of the disabled parking spaces had been coned off to provide priority parking for the Olympians - some of the fittest people in the world!
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Old Oct 16, 2012, 6:34 pm
  #90  
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Originally Posted by eturowski
$14/hour to push a wheelchair seems fair to me for an unskilled worker doing manual labor with the assistance of a simple machine. Likely the "reliance" on tips, as you put it, can be attributed more to the American habituation to tipping in general.
Is that what they are paid? Why in the world so many people claim that they depend on tips? Anyone who is paid minimum wage or more does not deserve a tip by default.
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