Handicapped parking space abuse evident worldwide

The Post and Courier's Watchdog team found dozens of examples of possible misuse of handicap placards around the City Market and the Medical University of South Carolina, but the problem is by no means limited to Charleston.

Across the world, unscrupulous motorists are trying to beat the system.

A city in England recently nabbed 700 violators.

In Australia, traffic officials set up a hotline after finding 1,200 cars using the permits in one crackdown. Dougie Herd, a traffic official who is paralyzed, told a Sydney newspaper: "it's just a worldwide problem and I have to say it drives us bananas. If you want my parking space, do you want to take my paralysis as well, because I'd be happy to give up both."

In Boston, investigators with the Massachusetts Inspector General's Office found nearly a third of about 1,000 placards they checked were used by someone who wasn't disabled. Toting surveillance cameras, investigators found that 49 were registered to dead people and were used routinely to park in premium downtown spaces.

Big money is at stake. In Florida, investigators at Miami International Airport recently found that hundreds of perfectly healthy airport and airline workers routinely used handicap parking spaces, cheating the airport out of as much as $1 million a year.

Investigators noted that some employees were saving the equivalent of $11,000 or more in parking fees by using their handicap placards. One surveillance tape shows a federal officer parking his Mercedes and strutting through the garage.

Three out-of-state airline employees "parked in the disabled parking spaces for days and weeks at a time," Miami investigators said in their report. "In one instance, an individual parked for free for 58 days. The waived parking fee was $870." Video surveillance showed people walking easily to their cars and bending over to pick up items.