Only people who have a new yellow and gray “meter-exempt permanent placard” will be allowed to park free at meters statewide under a new Illinois law that takes effect this New Year’s Day. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration plans a 15-day grace period to give legitimately disabled people who might not be aware of the change time to adjust.
Until now, anybody who hung a conventional blue or red disabled-parking placard or had a set of handicapped license plates could park for free all day long in any metered spot in Illinois.
As a result, meter cheating became rampant in Chicago, with drivers using relatives’ placards, fake placards and even stolen placards to avoid paying parking rates that began soaring in 2009 under the meter-privatization deal championed by former Mayor Richard M. Daley.
That deal also impacted taxpayers by requiring City Hall to reimburse Chicago Parking Meters LLC for the free parking the company provides to drivers who displayed disability placards or plates — payments that have totaled about $55 million to date. http://www.suntimes.com/24620964-761/crackdown-on-illegal-use-of-disabled-parking-placards-starts-in-2-weeks.html
It would be nice if every police department would crack down on people who abuse the handicapped parking places with handicap parking placard or handicapped car license plate.
Too many times I have seen people who were supposedly so seriously disabled that they needed the special parking places, jump out of their car, looking like they are linebackers for the Green Bay Packers.
Now, of course, the cops are too busy dealing with, oh say, getting donuts from Winchell's or Dunkin Donuts to deal with this issue, to deal with handicapped license abuse, but it would be nice if they did make a token effort to cut down on the abuse.
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