Handicapped parking spots are essential for those who have mobility issues, which is why they are legally reserved for people with the right permits.

What would you do if you saw someone without a permit parking there and when you asked them about it, they started going off on you and yelling?

That is what happened to the young lady in this story while she was taking her disabled parents to appointments, so she tracked the lady down and reported it so that she got a fine.

Check it out.

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.

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).

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).

Why would anyone park there with no permit?

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.

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 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.”

She seems crazy.

“YES YOU SHOW ME THE FINGER! WHY YOU SHOW FINGER AT ME?”

I was seriously upset 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, realizing 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.

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 offense 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.

They seem to be taking this seriously.

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 apologized 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.

Hopefully this will teach her a valuable lesson.

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

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.

Getting upset when you are in the wrong is a great way to make your situation worse.

Let’s see what the people in the comments think about this situation.

Wow, like tanning is that important?

That employee should be fired.

That would be a great service.

Yup, she should have just driven away.

Don’t get mad when you get caught.

Talk about an overreaction.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.