I have noticed that handicapped parking is being violated all over. As I am out and about, I notice that handicapped parking is being abused all the time in many different ways.

The largest group of offenders are delivery drivers. They park in handicapped parking all the time and sometime even take up more than one space.

Or they’ll park in the “no parking” zones next to the handicapped spots. These zones are designated so there is room to pull out a wheelchair or extend a ramp for a disabled person.

Also, businesses will put things in handicapped parking spaces, like when I was at a moving company and they had a trailer you could rent – parked in the only handicapped parking spot on the lot.

Although it is their lot, displaying things in handicapped parking is not an allowed exemption.

The other time handicapped parking gets violated is coming up very soon, with winter right around the corner. Lots of different places have the issue of where to put all the snow that has to be plowed in the winter. Over the last few years, I have seen many of these places shove all the snow into the handicapped parking zones.

I believe they are thinking that since these spots are not used as often as the others, they don’t want to lose parking for able-bodied customers, so the snow is put in the spot used less often – which is the handicapped spot. This frustrates me so much. Winter is hard enough on many people with disabilities – they don’t need all the handicapped spots to be taken up with snow as well.

These practices of taking up handicapped spots by non-handicapped users is getting out of control, and awareness needs to be spread.

Marc Smith

Brunswick