Today I took my parents to the grocery store. My mom has a handicap placard. So, we parked in one of the handicap spots.

As I pulled into the space, a lady pulled into the wheelchair access space right next to me. (seriously close to my car too) An area that is NOT considered a parking spot.

So, as my parents and I were getting out of the car, I mentioned to the lady something like "you know you can be ticketed for parking in the wheelchair access space, even if you have a valid permit". You'd think I'd just tried to carjack her or something. She naturally went off on me.

I was trying to be nice and save her a parking ticket. (the guy who patrols the parking lots to write tickets for handicap parking violations was down by Kmart at the time, and was heading that way) She started to scream at me, and was calling me all sorts of bad words. (one started with the letter "F", and another one started with the letter "B", and there were a few others)

She was yelling that she could fall down... I believed her. I also noticed that she didnt have the placard or plate. (could be she forgot to put it up tho. I saw her walking, and really believe that she probably has a placard. Walked worse than my mom does) I did tell her that I totally understand the falling down...since I have MS and the vertigo has occasionally snuck up on me and knocked me to the floor a few times. (and I've tripped over myself a few times in the past few years)

There were also about 5 other open handicap spaces.

I tried to tell her that Ticket Writing guy was in the area and he WILL write tickets to people parked in the wheelchair access space (seen him do it) and he'll even sit there with his car behind the illegally parked car until the owner comes out and will use public humiliation to educate them in not parking illegally. She was too busy yelling at me tho to really listen.

I was just trying to warn her that the ticket guy was probably going to give her a ticket for parking in the wheelchair access. Plus the fact that the car on the other side belonged to a family that I've seen at the store before that the husband uses a motorized wheelchair, and for how close she'd parked to them, she was blocking his ability to get into his car when they came out of the store.

She was really ticked off, and so I just left it at that and went into the store with my parents. I did go over and warn the customer service guy about her and that she was really mad. Just in case she went in there to complain about me saying something to her.

On my way out, the guy who uses the wheelchair that was parked next to where she was, was talking to an employee of the store outside. (cart pusher) and the cart pusher was telling him about the lady being parked next to wheelchair guy's car. (the lady was gone by that point) Wheelchair guy said that he'd have written her a ticket himself, since he's apparently been trained to do that and carries a ticket book around with him. He was disappointed that he missed her. Apparently he loves to write tickets to people.

I told him that if I'd known he could write the tickets, I'd have come and gotten him myself. I can totally understand the frustration and fear of falling down and hurting yourself when walking into a store....but she really needed to realize that there are others that really need that wheelchair access space to be able to get in and out of their cars, and that she'd be seriously inconveniencing them. (or making it dangerous for people in wheelchairs to even attempt to get in and out of their car)

Especially since there were other handicap spaces available that she could have used (on the other side of the aisle)

I wonder if I was wrong in saying something...but I felt like it was ok to do so, since she could have parked in one of the other open legal spots as long as she had a placard.