Plea for Input: disability parking permit and license plate.

RantWoman urges readers, PLEASE comment:

RantWoman has received the following plea for public comment. RantWoman enthusiastically invites readers, especially readers who live or regularly travel to WA to accept this invitation and comment:


The Department of Licensing is asking for comments from the public on license plates and placards for individuals with disabilities. See more information at: http://licensingexpress.wordpress.com/tag/workgroup/

RantWoman further assumes readers may be interested in the main Department of Licensing site http://www.dol.wa.gov/

RantWoman herself recently visited the DOL site about disability plates and parking permits and other related topics:

http://www.dol.wa.gov/search.html?cx=012898029184726911835%3Ajlzqvu4h22m&cof=FORID%3A11%3BNB%3A1&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=disabled


If RantWoman were fastidiously attentive to unbiased opinion collection, she would stash her own reflections about disabled parking permits at least in a separate entry from the invitation to comment. RantWoman is not that fastidious and is also interested in knowing whether there might be others who share any of her perspectives.

RantWoman knows several people who have disabled parking placards. These make sense to RantWoman because movable placards can be used on multiple vehicles. Many of the people RantWoman knows either are caregivers for their own family members or work as caregivers for other people or sometimes both.

RantWoman knows that some of these placards get used at times when a paid caregiver is not at work or for trips where the specific client / or family member is not in the car. Frankly, in the general case, RantWoman does not CARE. If someone is disabled enough to need a permit, those who take care of them already have a lot of burdens. If a parking permit will ease some of those burdens, RantWoman is all for it.

This does not mean RantWoman wants the placard holder to go camp all day for free. RantWoman wants the placard holder to be responsible and respectful of others who might need disabled parking; maybe RantWoman will read more of what those getting paid have to say about actual behavior. In the meantime, RantWoman has opinions anyway.

In particular, RantWoman has a couple people who give RantWoman rides who wish she would get a disabled placard. Understand, RantWoman is legally blind but RantWoman does not want to admit to anything near enough mobility impairment to qualify, according to what RantWoman reads on the website, for a disabled placard. Moreover, RantWoman really needs to get exercise and move large muscle groups as often as possible in order to maintain enthing approaching a girlish figure.

Recently RantWoman collided with another reality. RantWoman generally HATES parking garages in the first place but one of her volunteer chaffeurs is quite accustomed to driving rather than taking the bus and to parking in parking garages. Thus was RantWoman reminded how much she DISlikes bad lighting, occasional parking barriers which require her ALWAYS to make Ambassador Thwack the Badly Behaved Cane be on duty.

RantWoman is taller and, um, larger than many of her chauffeur friends and really gets nervous about having her friends be sighted guide; RantWoman is more than enough of a clutz without having other people too near to fall on top of too. RantWoman is having a pang about getting her move large muscle groups exercise some other place besides inside parking garages. RantWoman is ALMOST having enough of a pang to consider a disabled parking permit. Almost. Maybe RantWoman will TRY to preach the gospel of transit riding so the exercise of walkign to and from bus stops is built in and RantWoman can avoid parking garages. Hmmmph!