Handicap Toilet

But what happens if you are in the handicap stall and a handicap person comes in?

Then you look like a huge ass. I stay away from them for this reason.

Relative to the use of the handicap stall, if there's no choice, use it. As for the seats on a bus, the same. If a handicapped individual boards the bus, you should give up the seat.

However, I have a problem with the entire mentality relative to handicap facilities. We tend to exercise a policy of overkill in virtually every social issue we face. Public access to facilities for the handicapped is particularly overdone.

Federal regulations require that 20% of all public facilities, including parking, be made available to handicapped people. Simply put, it means that 20% of the total parking spaces be dedicated to handicapped. It means that 20% of all bathrooms be handicapped accessible. There are many others.

The federal government arrived at this magic percentage through various sources, including census reports. In nice round numbers the bureaucrats decided that this percentage represents the average number of handicapped people, in total, that may possibly need access to public facilities at a given time.

I've done the research on this. I travel extensively, not just in the United States, but all over the world. Even though I'm retired, the professional researcher in me is still very much alive. The point is that I just cannot stay away from inferential statistics.

You folks do not have to go to all of this trouble, though. I invite all of you readers, the next time you go to your local shopping mall, to pay attention to the total number of handicapped people making their way through. You will find that the number does not come anywhere near 20%.

Walk through any office building, single story or multi-story. Observe what you see. Again, the number of handicapped does not come anywhere near 20%.

Make your observations randomly, in terms of both time and location. Make a point of visiting the other two counties in Delaware. If you are visiting out of state, do the same thing wherever you are visiting.

The next time you are shopping at a mall, check out the food courts or scattered food providers. This will give you an indication of the traffic volumes going through.

Food concession purchases are impulsive. In other words, precious few people go to the mall to buy a hot dog. Plenty of those people, however, will buy a hot hog if they're already at the mall.

Count the number of food concessions. The larger the number of concessions, the greater the customer foot-volume required to support the food concessions.

It takes a minimum of 10,000 customers per 70-hours of open time/week to support a typical food concession at a revenue volume required to keep the concession profitable.

Larger numbers of food concessions require larger volumes of customer food-traffic.

The Concord Mall in northern New Castle County, will contain, on straight average, between 75 and 150 customers per hour wondering around along the mall walk-way or in the various stores.

This amounts to between 5,200 and 11,000 customers per 70-hour week. And, remember; I'm referring to straight-weight averaging as opposed to weighted averaging.

This means that we should be seeing between 1,000 and 2,200 handicapped people per week. We don't see anywhere near this number.

I have no problems with making sure the handicapped have access to all public facilities. However, the overkill costs are significant.

I won't park in a handicapped parking space. I don't care how empty the parking lot is or how far I may have to walk. It's a matter of principle with me.

Using a handicapped stall, which, by the way, also serves as a diaper-changing table many times, is another matter. When I have to go, and there's no other choice, I'm going to use it.

Regards,

__________________
Joe Walther
http://thetruefacts.blogharbor.com

The phrase "bladder cripple" just made me laugh so hard I peed a little....and i'm sitting on the couch!

The handicap bathroom is available for both handicap and non-handicaps partons of an establishment. There is a federal law that dictates the number of stalls / parking spaces that need to be provided per number of partons. I use the handicapped stalls all the time. More than I use a regular stall, they seem to be cleaner. If anyone dares give me a look or has the balls to actually say somethinig to me, they are in for a long lecture. What pisses me off is the amount of drivers that utilize handicapped spaces that are not actually handicapped. A close 2nd is the handicapped driver that takes up 2 h/c spaces or parks in between two h/c spaces making it difficult for a truley handicapped person to enter/exit thier vehicle.

I have tendency to talk too much. I did want to mention there is also a law on that states a person with a h/c tag, ect., can not be asked to provide proof of h/c status. A business can be sued for inquiring as to your handicap.

My sister has a health condition that is not clearly visible but is very health threatning. She is having a hell of a time obtaining a h/c parking tag, which really pisses me off because a fat person can get a tag simply because they are fat.

I've used the handicapped stall on many occasions, including those situations that didn't require seating (yes, I prefer to "ride tall in the stall" as opposed to using the urinal...sue me). But I've always been a consciencious visitor (yes ladies, I'm well-trained with the whole "lift the seat" deal).