Look at this carefully:

Parking violators at an elementary school in MA

The owner of that uber shiny, big, white Mercedes Benz is parked illegally (no placard, no need) in the handicapped spot at an elementary school.  I am at this school every Saturday  during the school year with my daughter for her language class, and I’d say every week there at least two cars parked illegally in the three handicapped spaces.

The Town and Country minivan is parked illegally too.  No placard AND they are partially parked in the hatch marks.  Somehow, it’s the Mercedes that really pushed me over the edge, so I took a picture to show to the administration of the school.  Taking the picture made me feel marginally better, because the driver was sitting behind the wheel.

If it’s one of your peeves, how many times have you approached someone so parked only to be looked at in disbelief or with incredulity.  If the offender even deigns to respond, it’s usually a blithe explanation that “No one needs it right now” or “I’ll only be here for a minute.”

Well, check out this post in the New York Times recently:

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/using-an-app-to-report-handicap-parking-violations/?_r=2

Calling out the violator either doesn’t work (in my experience) or could result in their meeting your remarks with aggression.   But the ability to take a picture of the car and license plate, email it to the police station and have them deal with it (even if all they do is issue a warning) would be so satisfying.  At least you can feel like you’ve done something.  This app sounds genius to me.

What do YOU think?