Caught in a Bad Spot : When Able-Bodied Drivers Park in Handicap Spaces, This Officer Has Just the Ticket for Them--for $52

You pull into the mall parking lot and an empty space catches your eye. But it’s for handicapped people only, and you drive to the back of the lot.

Then a strapping fellow in Olympic health takes the handicap parking spot and dashes into the mall. It really burns you.

It burns Irwin Morrison, too. But he can do something about it.

Morrison can stick little paper slips under windshields notifying drivers that they now owe the State of California $52.

Parking Enforcer

Morrison is a special forces officer for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. His sole responsibility is handicap parking enforcement.

He roams the south county from Lake Forest to the San Clemente line in an unmarked car--100 miles a day--to catch people who have parked illegally those spots. And he loves it.

“I think it’s a good law; I don’t mind it a bit when I can catch someone,” Morrison said.

The state Department of Motor Vehicles issues special license plates to the handicapped or gives them blue placards to put on their dashboards. That lets the police and store owners know that the driver is authorized to use handicapped parking spots.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors set up the one-man enforcement program about a year ago. Now officials are talking about adding another officer and expanding the territory.

Morrison issues about 10 tickets a day. Most are for $52; some are $30 fines for cars blocking access ramps.

Sheriff’s officials figure it takes four tickets a day to pay Morrison’s salary, his expenses and other costs of running the program. Any tickets he issues after that are gravy. In the first seven months this year, he issued $70,000 worth of tickets.

17 Tickets on Best Day

Morrison, who took over the job this year, doesn’t work on quotas. But he has never failed to ticket at least four vehicles. His record for one day is 17.

And he has heard it all.

“The drivers are never wrong. It’s always the officer’s fault for catching them,” Morrison said. “It’s always, ‘I was just going to be two minutes. Why get me?’ ”

The worst offenders are not at shopping malls or grocery stores, but at hospitals, Morrison said.

“Parents come in with a child with a broken arm. They figure that qualifies as a handicap, so they park in handicap parking,” he said. “But that’s not the law.”

Morrison has learned a few things. For example, more violations occur when it rains. Otherwise, no day is worse than any other day.

Most people pay the fines. Morrison had to go to court only six times. Each time the traffic commissioner found the drivers guilty. But all six times the traffic commissioner suspended the fine.

That rankled Morrison only once. The day after he ticketed a man, the man’s wife parked in the same spot in the same car. Both made excuses to the court and got out of paying the fine.

Idea Behind Enforcement

Morrison’s boss, Sheriff’s Lt. David Mann, said that finding as many violators as possible isn’t the goal.

“The idea is to keep these spots free for the people who really need them,” Mann said.

Margeta Jorgenson, president of the Orange County chapter of the state Assn. of the Physically Handicapped, insisted that handicapped people aren’t looking for special privileges, just a place to park.

Jorgenson, who is handicapped, said that parking poses two problems: If she has to park far away, other drivers backing out might not see her in her wheelchair. And in regular spots, there isn’t enough room to get her wheelchair out of the car.

“Misuse of the handicap parking spaces is still a serious problem,” she said. “Whenever I leave home, I still have to be concerned whether I’m going to find parking.”

Morrison is not the only officer handing out such tickets. Several Orange County cities boast rigid handicap parking enforcement. But they use traffic patrol officers and often just in response to complaints.

Signs Must Conform

Huntington Beach, which state rehabilitation officials say has a good record for handicap enforcement, does have one problem, said Karen Peterson, parking control supervisor for its Police Department. Too many businesses put up handicap parking signs that don’t meet state qualifications.

State law requires an emblem with a blue background behind a wheelchair, either on the parking spot or an adjacent sign. Parking spots which say “handicap parking only” don’t meet the requirement, she said. Nor do signs with the wheelchair emblem but no blue background or spots with no blue borders. Police can’t issue tickets when the signs are improper, she said.

“The best we can do is inform the complainant about it,” she said.

Another problem, Morrison said, is the person with a handicap sign in the car because a family member--who is not with them--is handicapped. That also is illegal, but difficult to enforce when the drivers claim the relative is inside a store.

Ticketed Whenever Possible

But, Peterson said, those people are ticketed whenever possible.

“We’ve seen a car with a handicap placard parked in a handicap spot, then three guys with surfboards get out,” she said. “You can bet we’re going to cite them.”

Morrison, 49, a retired Marine captain, isn’t always hard-nosed. Sometimes, he said, he gives people a break by telling them to move on when he sees them pull into a spot.

Morrison has learned not to argue.

“They start telling me how wrong I am to give them a ticket,” he said. “I just smile, tell them to have a good day, and move on.”