Disability Plate Appearances

No this isn't an article about Boston Red Sox David Ortiz's poor batting average.

Doesn't it bother you to watch seemingly healthy people hop in and out of their cars parked in the best spots in the lot when folks who really need them are forced to park much further away? We see people all the time carrying boxes in/out of their trunks and (literally) hopping into their cars. It makes me curious to find out what the loophole is in this process.

Most state's Department of Transportation require that a physician to sign that an applicant for a Disability Plate or Placard have one of the following conditions:

- Unable to walk 200 feet without stopping to rest
- Unable to walk without assistance from another person or from a brace, cane, crutch, wheelchair or other prosthetic or assistive device
- Lung disease with forced respiratory
- Uses portable oxygen
- Cardiac condition with Class 3 or 4 functional limitations as by American Heart Association standards
- Severely limited in ability to walk due to an arthritic, neurological or orthopedic condition.

The people I witness do not have any signs of the first five so it must be the last condition. Of course, this is, also, the most vaguely written one. Figures.

I'm not sure what the rules are for the Handicap stalls in the bathroom, but I need the extra space because I get claustrophobic in the regular ones.