Monday, September 20, 2010

Karma Kameleon

Martena Clinton, mugging for the camera in this choreographed photo.

A few things jump out at me over this story:
  1. "Clinton has the handicapped tag because her husband suffered a stroke."
  2. "She displayed a handicapped tag prominently, locked her car and checked with a police officer who happened to be parked right behind her. He assured her the spot was legal."
  3. The "police had not kept track of where they had moved" her car.
  4. The car was a block and a half away.
It sucks to have your car towed. It gives you a lead-in-the-belly feeling that just makes you sick. People shouldn't have to go through that, especially after being assured by a police officer that you are legally parked.

That said, it serves her right. As commenters on the article have pointed out, while parking in a handicapped spot was legal because she had a handicap tag, the use of said tag is not legal because ... well ... she's not handicapped. If I had been the officer, I would have informed her of that little fact and had her move the car.

In which case, she most likely would have parked farther away and her car would have most likely not been moved.

Karma. She is a bitch.

(Cross-posted on The District Diaries)

4 comments:

Admiral X said...

So what if she's the mother of, say, a handicapped child and thus entitled to a handicapped placard? I only ask because one of my first cousins is severely handicapped and her parents have handicapped plates. I guess they shouldn't drive unless she's in the car?

ArrBee said...

If they were plates, I wouldn't think twice about it. But this was a tag ... you know, the kind you have to hang on your rearview mirror. If you read the article, you would know that she consciously and deliberately displayed the tag before getting out of the car.

Tuffie said...

It's nice to see that even 'well to do black people' (and I can say that because I'm part black ^_^) can be just as lazy and dismissive of basic rules and laws and yet fain shock and ignorance when life calls them on it as their white counterparts.

Racial divide still alive? Sure if blatant stupidity is the deciding factor.

I concur with DD, serves her right. Maybe next time after she has a stoke of her own she'll be legally allowed to park using her own handicap tag, not her husbands.

o_O

Just Jack said...

@Admiral X: When getting the HC hang tag it is explicitly (at least in NJ where my Mom and Dad have had the use of one at various times) stated that it is a) temporary and b) only valid for the use of the stated person, usually with the name on it. So John had the right to use it when John was driving, but Ann didn't, and vice versa. I'll bet you ten bucks that the HC plates probably have a similar restriction that they are 'technically' only supposed to be used when the child is in the car, the difference being that the HC plates don't have a name and expiration date hand written on them that an officer could easily check.