Our latest frustration is not terribly offensive or limiting but it definitely reveals how “normal” people in their everyday lives don’t think about the needs of the handicapped.

Many of the shopping areas we frequent have very few cutouts in the curbs for wheelchair access.  The older ones are especially challenging on this front.  In the older shopping areas, I find the cutouts are narrow, steep, and not well positioned relative to the handicapped parking spaces.  Many of the more modern shopping areas don’t even have curbing which really simplifies access.

Many times, we have approached the cutouts only to find that a car has pulled up parallel to the curb and is blocking our access to the cutout.  This occurs when people run into a store for a quick purchase and the driver remains in the car to wait.  In the south, where we live, this happens a lot in the hot summer.  In those cases, I am quick to approach the car, tap on the window or just give hand motions for them to move.  Seeing the wheelchair,  they always get the message quickly.  I have never had a person fail to move when we approached and asked for them to move.

Last week we encountered a different version of this problem though.  In a strip shopping area, there was only one curb cutout for wheelchairs on each end of the length of shops and stores.  We parked on one end and approached the area of the cutout on our end.  Unfortunately, a UPS truck was parked against the curb blocking access for us.  The truck was locked and no one was in it to respond to my knocks on the door.  So there we stood in the middle of the driveway, unable to get the wheelchair up on the sidewalk without pushing down the driveway for several yards.

The situation was defused quickly as the UPS driver emerged from a store where he was making a delivery.  I was concerned that he was getting lunch and would be parked there for some time but I believe a UPS driver would probably not park his truck in that area for a lunch break.  I don’t harbor strong feelings about the actions of the UPS driver.  I am sure he just didn’t notice what he did and he didn’t park maliciously to cause a problem for us or anyone else.  The fact remains though that such individuals should become more aware of handicap access points as they go about their job.  I don’t know how to raise that awareness except for the companies with delivery functions to include it in their training programs.  I am open to suggestions though.