I have officially Seen It All

[jmowreader]

The Pilot truck stop at I-40 Exit 398 (just east of Knoxville, Tennessee) has a handicapped parking spot big enough to hold a truck with a 53-foot trailer.

While I do like the ADA, I really can't imagine how you'd make "reasonable accommodations" that would allow a paraplegic to drive a big rig. This is definitely a job that requires four fully functioning limbs. This morning I picked up a load of canned Budweiser that will demonstrate: In the process of getting 47,000 pounds of so-called beer on the road, I had to drive the truck (I have an automatic transmission so no clutch pedal is involved, but the brakes aren't something you could work with your hand and there's still the accelerator to deal with), pull, push, open trailer doors, climb into the cab, climb into the trailer, install a load lock five feet off the trailer floor, climb a ramp to the shipping office...

So what's the point of having a handicapped spot?

[rug]

1. .

:popcorn:

[Tobin S.]

2. I've seen some drivers with some pretty busted up bodies

They are still able to drive, but they couldn't lump a load of produce or even walk a quarter mile across across a parking lot to save their lives. How they get their medical cards is beyond me. It's mostly older drivers who started driving trucks when they really bounced you around and beat the hell out of you. I've also seen younger drivers who are pushing 400 pounds who could probably make use of a handicapped spot. As far as I know you don't need a permit to park in a truck handicapped space.

It's very easy to become very unhealthy when you drive over-the-road for a living. You've seen the crap they pass off as food in those truck stops and it really takes a conscientious driver to get some exercise out there.

[hippywife]

12. Everything Tobin said is true.

I worked as an LTL load planner/dispatcher for a few years. There are some of these guys that had trouble making it in to the office from their truck, which was parked right outside. It's definitely not a job that promotes a healthy lifestyle, especially for those who have been doing it for decades.

[alphafemale]

3. But do they have a Braille menu for the Semi-truck drivers at the ATM?

On the driver's side?

[jmowreader]

5. I've seen Braille keys on fuel island pumps

You know, the LAST place you'd expect something like that.

[flvegan]

4. You know that handicapped spots aren't JUST for folks missing limbs, right?

I'm sure there are drivers with some form of lung disease that would be thankful to not have to walk that far, etc.

[SeattleGirl]

8. Absolutely correct, flvegan

Near the end of her life, my mom had a handicapped barking placard. She wasn't missing any limbs or anything; she had a lung disease, and was unable to walk far.

[hippywife]

14. And my grandmother

who was extremely arthritic which made it very painful for her to walk very far at all.

[busybl]

6. Our library has braille on the drive-up book drop.

[Captain Hilts]

7. It's like braille on the drive-up ATM. Beats me. nt

[flvegan]

11. Likely because ATM keypads are mass produced in one style

for cost savings. Walk up, drive up, in store...all made the same.

[jmowreader]

15. It's because ATM units are mass produced in one style

If you want a kiosk or a drive-up, they install the ATM works into the necessary cabinet and send it out. One for the wall contains the same guts but no freestanding cabinet. But the machine is the same no matter what cabinet you put it in.

[hippywife]

13. Besides what's already been stated in this

and the other thread about it, that the buttons are mass produced, it's not a huge leap of the imagination that a passenger in the car could be blind or have low vision.

[LynneSin]

9. Um perhaps the handicap isn't for someone with damaged limbs

just saying

[qnr]

10. Might have handicapped passengers/companions? I don't know enough about

the regulations to know if that's accepted or not though.

[jmowreader]

17. You can carry a handicapped passenger

Whether you WOULD or not is another question; that's a pretty high place to have to repeatedly lift someone in and out of.

I think the real reason, flvegan's non-visible disability theory aside, is that someone from the Knox County Building Inspector's office decided "every parking lot will have a handicapped parking spot for x number of parking spaces" (this Pilot's lot holds 150 trucks--as Pilots go, it's a very large one) meant the truck lot too. Most truck stops don't have them, including the two closest Pilots--there's one on the west side of Knoxville and one in Dandridge, which is a few miles east. Hell, Murfreesboro's Pilot, which is about twice the size of the one in question, doesn't have one. There's one in Brownsville, TX, that's easily twice the size of Knoxville's and they don't have one. And I don't remember ever seeing one at a TA or Petro--two brands of truck stops with truly immense lots.

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. Have you seen the fnord?

[littlebit]

18. The point is yes there are handicapped

truckers. And yes they do have to have a handicap placard to park in those spots. Also I do believe it is a requirement under the ADA act.