It doesn't bother me when people use the handicap stall if your not handicapped. I don't think that the stall is only limited to them using it. If you gotta go you gotta go, regardless. It's also nice to use the bigger stall when you have little ones with you. A lot of the handicapped stalls have the diaper changing station in it.

Okay, I use the handicap stall when nobody else needs it.

I have a friend who is handicapped and parking is a pain for him. If someone uses the permits wrong (they're not disabled) or people, like some I know, who had surgery and their doctors gave them the permit for MONTHS longer than they needed it, and if all the "disabled" spots are taken he has to park WAY in the back of the lot so he has room to get his wheelchair out, and get into it. Mind you.. it is NOT a motorized wheel chair so then he has to roll himself hundreds of feet to the entrance! TICKS ME OFF!

Also... I don''t think people who have children should get special parking treatment, it was their choice to have kids. And no, I don't have kids but my ex boyfriend did and I have taken his 2 and 3 year old boys to the store countless times. I still feel that pregnancy or children should not mean you get special treatment. Just my opinion though. I do however, agree that senior citizens should get special parking. Getting old wasn't their choice!

I had severe nerve pain with each of my pregnancies and appreciated the grocery store letting me park closer so I didn't have to walk as far. Our store has two such spots but there are over a dozen handicapped ones. In my opinion, there are a lot of pregnant women who could use and appreciate the closer parking. Just being a senior citizen doesn't get you a handicapped spot. Many handicapped people are not senior citizens. That's why you have to have a Doctor's release for one.

I'm disabled and use and electric scooter 99% of the day. I could write volumes about handicapped restroom stalls. Let's put it this way---I know where every convenient one is in the Fox Valley area in Wisconsin!

In my experiences, I've met both the nicest and the rudest people while in my scooter. I choose to remember the nice ones.

As for a "normal" person using the handicapped stall, that doesn't bother me as long as they leave it clean.

While it's a person's choice to have children, for the most part, stores have a right to give special treatment to anyone they wish to, unless it's clearly based on illegal criteria (you can't have "whites only" parking). You will sometimes see clergy parking in hospitals, employee of the month parking in grocery stores....

One reason I could see for allowing for close parking for vehicles with small children, is that commercial parking lots are one of the most deadly places for small children. Some of it is caused by parents not being watchful enough, and some of it is due to people driving in parking lots as if it were a racetrack, or at least a highway rather than a parking lot.

There is no legal right for parents with small children to have close parking, but I support any store owner's decision to supply it if they wish.

I use the handicap stall if nobody else disabled (or has a baby who needs a didy change, the changing table is usually in the handicap stall because it has the most space) is in the loo. I reckon it's like the sideways seats on the bus: anybody can use them but if someone with a disability gets on you're supposed to let them use those particular seats

OMG candy kisses, I would have been mortified!

I have no problem with parking further away to allow a pregnant woman, or woman with small children a close parking spot. I don't need it! I'll just walk further and burn more calories

I Have a very outspoken handicap girlfriend, who uses a wheelchair. If she sees someone come out of a handicap stall & they are not visibily handicaped, she tells them off! It irritates her to no end.

If no one else is present, I really don't see why it would be a problem.

Handicapped stalls in bathrooms are handicapped accessible due to their size and how they're equipped. But they're not reserved solely for the use of handicapped people. It is incorrect to compare them to handicapped parking spaces, which are reserved for the use of handicapped people due to their proximity to a building.

Yes, I do use the handicapped restroom, and will continue to. I wouldn't use it if there were someone obviously handicapped waiting to use it, but I also don't question anyone in line behind me to find out if they are or aren't handicapped.

I can't understand the logic of leaving a stall unused if there are people waiting.

whoever built the bathroom at my work apparently thinks anyone over a size 6 is handicapped. almost nobody can fit into the regular stalls at all. when i'm in there it's impossible not to have to rub up against the little bin that holds the used feminine products AND the doors open inward so you have to sort of straddle the toilet to open the door all the way before you can attempt to get out. I use the freaking handicap stall. Also- if I were handicap ... well there isn't even room for a freaking wheelchair or walker in our handicap stall so i can't see it doing anybody any good.
We have two women in wheelchairs at my work and they are lucky enough to be mobile enough to leave their chair outside the stall. it's really ridiculous.
i must admit if the bathroom is empty i go for the big stall so i have enough room to move around.

I think that's a little excessive. I do use the handicapped stalls, and will continue to do so as long as no one handicapped is in the bathroom waiting to use it.

One of the main reasons, is because I have three children-from a toddler up to a 10 year old. If I am shopping alone, without another adult, it means I often have to take my 2 year old into the stall with me. It also means that I am not only toting my toddler, but also my purse, any shopping bag that I might have with me, AND my toddler's diaper bag. I simply cannot fit all of that stuff, plus my son, in the regular stall with me...and I am not leaving my 2 year old out by the sinks, etc. by himself while I pee.

The diaper changing station, and sometimes the fold down toddler seats, are often placed in the handicap stalls anyway...

Handicap stalls are not like parking tags...they are not RESERVED for the handicapped people, they are just made to be more accessible to them.

If no one handicapped is waiting to use the stall...then honestly, it really doesn't matter-and the user isn't hurting anything, or affecting a handicapped person in any way.


We had this same discussion here a few months back...and my position remains the same.

OK I have been reading along with this.....

I HAVE A disability..... I am not handicapped
the word handicapped comes from the old english for hand and cap
in other words people with disabilities were identified because all they were capable of doing (or society thought) they were capable of doing was begging and thus holding their cap in hand and looking for handouts....

times have changed and as such so has the language that we use.....
People HAVE disabilities
they are not a handicap and while I realize that nobody meant it the way it came out. the language that we do use defines us...

I would also like to say that wheelchair bound..... well being bound is to not have the wheelchair ..... having a wheelchair is liberating and quite freeing vs. being stuck in bed or carried from place to place. After my accident having that wheelchair allowed me to get to places that I couldn't before, to move myself around to go outside and not lay in bed any longer. I could start learning to do things again...... while I was working on getting up and going....

and pregnancy.... well pregnancy can certainly cause various disabilities but pregnancy in and of itself is not and to be honest as a woman I don't know that I want our society that already devalues women so much and thinks that women are not capable to view pregnancy as a disability and medical ailment.... that would send feminism right down the toilet and give many the excuse to not hire or promote women if pregnancy is viewed as a disability.

I am sorry but this is just a real hot button issue for me..... I am Deaf and practically made of metal since an auto accident many years ago. I have spent the past twenty years working in the area of disability rights and to be honest this stuff just drives me crazy......

I have to tell you those darned pregnancy parking spaces.... I hate them.... and as far as I am concerned they shouldn't exist.... especially when they are closer to the building than many of the actual disability parking spaces....
I park in them all the time..... people with disabilities didn't make a choice to have a disability .... being pregnant is a choice and really for most pregnant women.... if you read the studies... they all say excercising and walking is a good thing....

As for me nobody would know I have multiple disabilities until I go through the airport scanner.... or until they see me signing..... I have had people give me a hard time abotu parking in the placard spaces..... I just tell them it is my placard and that looks can be decieving (If I can see them and know they are talking to me)

I am sorry to be cranky but I just couldn't sit on my hands anymore....
s

See, this brings me back to the issue others have noted...some people just don't have visible disabilities. Is someone in a wheelchair more entitled to a handicapped stall than someone who has a herniated disk? You couldn't tell just by looking at someone, so I would reserve judgment. You just never know. And I think if I were in a wheelchair, I would feel weird if there were a line of people and I was singled out and told to go on ahead of everyone else in line. (I already dislike being singled out for any reason, so maybe that's just me).

Also, what if someone has something like IBS? I mean, someone with that disorder (not a disablility per se) would need a bathroom stall sooner than anyone else, and if the handicapped stall was the only one open, then why shouldn't she use it?

Have you been pregnant? Because with both of my pregnancies I had sciatica like no one's business. That pain can bring you to your knees with every step you take. We don't have the pregnancy spots where I live, and I wouldn't apply for a disability pass for sciatica pain during pregnancy, but I would certainly take advantage of the pregnancy spots if I could have.

ETA: As for the argument that someone else posted that pregnant women chose to be pregnant so they don't deserve special treatment? That's ridiculous. If someone is in pain, they're in pain, period. A woman doesn't decide to get pregnant so she can be in pain, she decides to get pregnant to bring a life into the world. You never know what side effects you'll encounter if you get pregnant.