People with disabilities have to go through a lot, and being able to park in designated spots is a small thing society can do to help them.

What happens when someone takes those parking spots without a license and thinks they can get away with it?

That’s the situation in this story, check out the brilliant way this person handled it.

Maybe don’t park in the reserved mobility-impaired lot next time.

My 2 parents, one who is wheelchair-bound, and the other who has advanced Parkinson’s Disease, live with me.

What a great son to help take care of his parents.

Due to their mobility issues, I obtained a special permit (time-based) that allows me to park temporarily in most handicapped-reserved parking lots when I’m transporting them.

This has been a godsend, since there is one of these lots just below my apartment, and the carpark is very busy.

The rules governing the usage of this permit and such lots are quite strict and most keep to them; however, you get the odd motorist who parks there without a permit from time to time.

Even though they run a risk of having to pay a fine, it really depends on whether anyone reports it, and then whether the parking attendants get there in time to issue the fine.

Oftentimes, they don’t, and the drivers get away with it.

So anyway, one day, I was bringing my parents to their usual appointments (mum to dialysis, dad to the eldercare center).

The nerve of some people.

As we exited the lift, I spotted an MPV reversing, then driving forward to straighten out, before reversing all the way to the back of the handicap-reserved lot, and then stopping.

Not wanting to jump to conclusions, I walked to the front of the car, where the permit would usually be displayed (this is mandatory).

Nope, no permit.

Only a couple of decals, one of which has the crest of our country’s police force.

And the driver, a middle-aged lady, is about to exit the car.

Instead of immediately reporting the illegal parking like I always do, I figured it would be better to give her the chance to move the car since she was still there.

So, I firmly but politely informed her that she was parking in a handicap lot without a license, and could she please move her car as I would be using it presently.

She can’t take being called out for her behavior.

The lady went ballistic, and started yelling, “Who said I was parking? I’m not parking! I was making a turn out! My car is big, so I have to make a bigger turn! Why do you say I’m parking?”

Which is absolute bollocks, if you’re doing a three-point turn, you don’t reverse all the way to the back of a parking lot just to make the turn out.

I decided to ignore her, and walked to my car, which was 3 lots down.

To my irritation, instead of getting back in her car and moving, she followed me, haranguing me all the way about how she wasn’t parking (all this while, her car firmly parked in the handicap lot).

And she’s a liar on top of it.

And then she yelled:

“Why you show me the finger? You show me the finger for what”

Now, there’s a lot of things I can handle, but to plainly slander me to gain sympathy? That’s a bridge too far, lady.

“I did not flash my middle finger at you.””YES YOU SHOW ME THE FINGER! WHY YOU SHOW FINGER AT M-”

I was seriously angry by now, but I was also on a time-sensitive schedule (I had to get my mum to the dialysis center by a cut-off time).

By now, 3 minutes had passed since she started screeching at me.

I ignored her, got into the car, made sure my permit reflected the correct time, and drove out towards the handicap lot, and waited.

The woman, realising that I wasn’t about to take her bait, got back into her car, started her engine, and drove off.

After dropping my parents off, I decided that I wasn’t going to take this one lying down.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have photographic evidence or video footage of her car actually parked in the lot, only pulling out of it.

The only camera that would have caught it belongs to the housing board (HDB, who also manages the carpark).

However, my rear-windshield camera did capture her license plate number. And there was that decal.

Well done sir.

So, I sat down at my laptop, composed a firmly worded email, then checked it for accuracy, and sent it off…

…to the Police Commissioner.

You see, with the police emblem so prominently pasted on the upper left hand corner of her front windshield, either she was:

1) an off-duty officer, in which case her conduct was unbecoming of a member of a government agency.

2) a relative of an officer.

3) illegally displaying a decal (this is an actual offence in my country) to give a misleading impression

4) a citizen who got the decal from a roadshow.

While no. 4 was the most likely, I figured I had nothing to lose.

And really, if it was any of the first three, then there ought to be some corrective action taken–that was the gist of the email.

The next day, I received a standard “we received your feedback with thanks, and have sent it to the relevant unit” email.

Ah well, at least someone saw it.

This morning, I woke up to find another email–this time from a staffer, who asked if he could give me a call later in the day to find out more about the incident.

Surprised but somewhat bemused, I replied Sure, I can take the call between 1-4pm (I wouldn’t be driving then, so I wouldn’t be likely to miss the call or take it illegally).

The staffer suggested 3pm, and I confirmed it and gave him my contact number.

At 3pm sharp, the phone rang-it was the staffer.

He made some quick queries, including if the woman had at any point identified herself as a member of the police.

To be fair, she hadn’t, and I said so.

He then explained that they had gone through their system, and the car did not belong to anyone in the agency, and since the woman had not claimed to be a police officer, the likelihood was that 4) the decal was picked up at a roadshow.

I apologised for having troubled him for such a small matter, he replied cheerfully No ma’am, it’s no trouble, we do have to investigate to make sure that there is no misuse.

Oh, yes, uh, we’ve also helped you report this to HDB already. So sorry that you had to go through this.

A well deserved fine.

So at the end of the day, she ended up with a $200 fine for unauthorized parking in a handicapped-reserved lot (I checked).

And she won’t be able to appeal because they will check the cameras and all it will show is that the car was stationary in the lot with her exiting for over 3 minutes.

The most hilarious part of the whole thing was, all she had to do that day was hold her tongue for 10 seconds, get out of the lot, then scream at me, and she would have gotten away with it.

So gong xi fa cai, lady, I hope you enjoy the extra ang pow you’re going to have to give to HDB, on top of the road tax you’ll need to pay in about 5 days’ time, which, given the size of your car, isn’t exactly a small amount.

Maybe next time you’ll think twice about giving it that to a stranger when you’re clearly in the wrong.

Especially when you don’t know that the stranger has a history of knowing who to go to, and exactly how to do so in a way their complaint gets seen.

Great job standing up for your parents, and the disabled!

Let’s see what commenters think about the story.

I love it when people get what’s coming to them.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Yup, a simple but satisfying story.

Entitled employees.

Use a handicapped parking spot without a license, pay the price.

I thought everyone knew that!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.