Making life of the disabled easier

I read in a news portal last Friday how a local council had towed away a car belonging to a senior disabled citizen.

The incident happened in Klang, Selangor.

The "bad guys" purportedly were the Klang Municipal Council (MPK) officers. The "victim" was a 65-year-old, who had polio and uses a wheelchair to move about.    

According to the report the incident happened outside the bank.

The man's car was duly parked in a handicapped parking slot provided by the municipality.

What went wrong was that the car had no wheelchair logo displayed on it. It was apparently driven by the senior man's able-bodied son.

Both must have thought that coming to the bank in a wheelchair was enough "physical evidence" to prove one's disability status.

But it wasn’t enough.

MPK's enforcement unit promptly towed away the car. Even though, according to the story, the son had run out of the bank and tried to explain to the officers that his father was still inside the building. 

Apparently MPK was unrelenting. The fact that the father had turned up at the office to prove that he was disabled, failed to tug their hearts.

As the story went, they ended up paying the fines: RM100 for wrongful parking and RM100 to release the vehicle.

As a former councillor of the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) for five years – and as a person who headed the council's disability committee – here are several things which I think could and should have been done to avoid the situation, and brought some amicable solution to the matter.

Disabled drivers: please ensure that you use the wheelchair logo signs both in front and the back of your vehicles at all times.

We often complain when non-disabled people steal our parking spots (and they are!). We blame local council enforcement officers for "sleeping on the job" and not taking action against them.

But how are we helping the situation? How are they to know who is disabled and who is not, if we confuse them by not using the stickers? The situation would not have happened if there was a wheelchair logo displayed on the car.

Disabled stickers: these should be made available only from MPK, not the Welfare Department (JKM) and not even the Road Transport Department. This would eliminate fraud such as someone purchasing one from a bookshop.

Disabled stickers should be issued only to people who have a disabled identification card. (This is to encourage more handicapped to register.) If they have none, it should be MPK's social and moral responsibility to assist the applicant to get one through JKM.

The stickers should be given free of charge to disabled drivers and renewed every three years or so.

Disabled stickers should only be given to people with physical disabilities, not the blind, deaf or others. MPK should decide if it is only for drivers with disabilities or those driving around the disabled or elderly.

(Keep in mind, if it is opened to the others – who can find alternatives with an able-bodied helper, it may deprive those who truly need the facility, that is, disabled drivers. In such a case, even more disabled parking spots will be required.)

Those with temporary disabilities, like in an accident or illness, should also be allowed to apply from the council with a government doctor's letter. It should be renewed monthly and eventually cancelled.

Awareness campaigns: in addition to the above, MPK and all councils should educate their non-disabled residents from time to time on how not to abuse disabled drivers' parking spots.

The programme should also include going down to residents' associations and seeking out disabled drivers in order to get them registered for the stickers. Sometimes home visits are necessary instead of expecting the disabled to turn up in offices. Or, even creating a "drive-in" in MPK's office is another extremely helpful method. 

Note: in the case of the senior citizen, giving a discount will be a compassionate and welcome thing. It is never too late to do so.

Local councils or anyone working to help the disabled must always remember this: the goal is always to make the life of the handicapped easier, never harder. – February 16, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.