Handicap Parking Signs

When it comes to parking your car in a public car park or parking lot, it can seem a little frustrating to be faced with a full to overflowing car park with no free spaces except a few displaying those handicap parking signs. But you shouldn't be upset by this, because those spaces are there for a very good reason, not least to comply with certain parking laws. That very good reason is to designate a certain number of parking spaces for those people who need them most. That means people with disabilities who maybe cannot walk very far and will benefit from the parking space that is closest to the store or service they need to visit.

What infuriates drivers more than anything is not the cruising around the car park for ages looking for a space before finally finding one, but seeing a vehicle occupying a handicap parking space that should not be there. This happens quite often and it takes a certain kind of person with little conscience or moral goodness to park in those spaces when they are not entitled to. This hub page looks at both the need for handicap parking spaces, the designating signs that depict them and why they are the way they are.

How to Spot Handicap Parking Signs

Handicap parking signs come in a variety of designs, but are all based around the blue background with a simple white outline image of a person in a wheelchair. Usually, but not always, white lettering is added to give the sign more meaning and in certain localities, added wording may be included below the main sign to provide further information, such as local by-laws or time restrictions that apply to the parking space.

Handicap parking signs can be sourced from a variety of location online and in brick and mortar establishments that advertise both in local newspapers, yellow pages and on websites online.

The Need for Designated Handicap Parking

If you have premises with car parking facilities, again depending upon your locality you may be required by law to reserve a proportion of your car parking spaces for drivers with disabilities. To comply with local laws, you should ensure that you are covered all ways by prominently displaying the relevant handicap parking signs on the designated car parking spaces. You may also need to paint the parking space with blue outlines and in some cases a further motif or handicap parking symbol designating the space for the use of drivers with disabilities.

But laws aside, it just makes good sense to provide designated parking spaces for drivers with disabilities. For one thing, it is common courtesy to extend the facility to those that need it most. For another, it is also good business sense, because while you are helping people with disabilities, you are also extending a welcome mat to a potentially large sector of the local population that would not otherwise use your facility or visit your business.

If you run a store with a parking lot, it is all the more evident that by providing handicap parking spaces close to your store's front door, you are going to attract people through it that you might not have done had you not provided the specific parking spaces. In other words, you have created a win-win situation by providing handicap parking spaces for both you and your customers, regardless of what the law say you have to do.

Naturally, you should therefore invest in some high profile, easy to read handicap parking signs to best display the fact to your customers and to deter all but the most determined driver from parking in them when they are not entitled to.