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A parking problem

Has it gotten to the point where it needs to be said that a judge who decides disability claims should not park his car in a handicap space using a permit issued to someone else?

Seven days in the past three weeks, a St. Petersburg Times reporter observed Judge Elving Torres' Mercedes in one of seven spots for the handicapped outside the Times' office in downtown Tampa. State records show the handicap placard on the dashboard of his car is registered to an 86-year-old woman from Bradenton.

Florida law makes it a misdemeanor to use another person's disabled placard if the permit owner "is not being transported in the vehicle." With so few handicap spaces, it only makes sense to partition them out to motorists actually needing a space close to their destination. The idea is to allow the disabled or people helping them easier access to work, the drugstore and the like, without making the placards a pass for the able-bodied to abuse them.

At least once this week, a worker who uses a wheelchair to reach the Times' building had to park at the far end of the sloping lot on a day Torres' car occupied a handicap space. One of society's simpler considerations for the disabled should be one we all instinctively honor.

[Last modified January 27, 2007, 10:11:13]