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Given that the metropolitan police seem busy coping with homicides, it seems reasonable that the enforcement of parking regulations could fall upon volunteers, such as the handicapped people in Denver who write tickets if the wrong people use reserved parking places.
It could be argued that anyone who parks in a handicap zone qualifies, since those who don't have physical handicaps obviously suffer from a moral handicap.
But that's not the intent of the reserved spaces, and I'm all for them. My youngest brother, Philip, spent most of his life in a wheelchair before he died at age 13 in 1974 from complications of muscular dystrophy.
In his day, there were few handicapped spaces and no laws provided for access to public facilities for the disabled. Getting him around -- allowing him to be part of the world -- was a frustrating, complicated and exhausting routine of steep steps, daunting curbs, freight elevators and long treks across parking lots.
However, there are many other parking scofflaws who make life harder than it needs to be. I've noticed this because I've come close to keeping a New Year's resolution I made at the onset of 1993 -- to walk the dog every day.
As we stroll, we encounter two classes of sidewalk parkers. In parts of town like mine, with sidewalks but without curbs, people often just park on the sidewalk. This forces us to venture into the street, which could be dangerous, or to detour across their lawns. In the latter case, I encourage the dog to defecate, but she's not very obedient.
In the better neighborhoods with curbs and curb cuts for driveways, people will park across the sidewalk, even though there's a garage just ahead. Given the expensive nature of the cars involved, these folks could obviously afford electronic garage-door openers.
The only sensible explanation is that they've just moved here from southern California, where pedestrians are an endangered species. These sidewalk obstructers don't mean to be rude; they just never think of pedestrian rights because they've never met a pedestrian.
Not always do I walk the dog. Sometimes I need to drive to the store, and often I find two or three spaces taken by someone who parks sideways.
Invariably it is a sparkling new sporty car, almost always bearing customized or designer license plates, and the owner is making a statement: My car is so neat and pretty that I can't permit it be profaned by allowing your old clunker to sit anywhere near it.
Such arrogance makes me want to attack the paint job with a can opener, but so far, I've resisted the temptation.
Now, if the police are willing to cooperate with the handicapped in one aspect of parking-law enforcement, they ought to be willing to co-operate with other oppressed special-interest groups, such as pedestrians and clunker drivers.
Then we could gleefully write tickets to arrogant scofflaws. And if the police won't cooperate, there's always the opportunity for vigilante action, providing I can get the dog trained.
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