Dressed in green slacks, knit slippers and a T-shirt with a logo reading “Jesus, Way of the Truth,” Pat Buehrle maneuvered her electric wheelchair across the parking lot at Wal-Mart, inspecting cars in handicapped spots.
She checked the bumpers and craned her neck to peer into the windshields. If Buehrle didn’t see a plate or a placard with a handicapped insignia on it, she pulled out a Sony Cyber-Shot camera and took incriminating photographs.
In a few weeks, the drivers would receive a citation in the mail. Violators face fines of up to $250.
On average, she cites about 40 vehicles a week. And she’s just one of a force of three, plus the police.
“Your frustration just builds,” says the 58-year-old Buehrle, who works part time busting disabled-parking violators for the City of Beaumont. “I would tell people just to stop and think a minute about this. What if it was your mother looking for a parking space, or your sister or your husband.”
Exactly how many handicapped drivers live in Southeast Texas is unknown, though about 13,500 placards adorn cars in Jefferson County. Disabled people can have up to two. The placards are available to motorists with mobility or respiratory problems or those who regularly transport relatives with a disability.
Not a favor
“These spaces are not a favor or a benefit for someone,” Dennis Borel, executive director of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, said in a telephone interview.
“It’s an accommodation for persons with disabilities to be more inclusive,” he said about the more than 2.6 million people in the state with disabilities.
To obtain a placard or plate, an applicant must have a form signed by a physician or podiatrist, have it notarized and turn it into the county tax assessor’s office.
Around Texas, almost 400,000 placards are in use, according to the state’s Department of Transportation.
“It seems like with the Baby Boomers getting older, you’re seeing a lot more of the placards and license plates then you used to see,” Buehrle said.
She said she runs into many people who could use the placards but don’t have them.
“Sometimes people are hesitant because they think the placards or plates mark them,” she said. “But if you want to use the parking spaces, you’re going to have to go through being identified as disabled.”
When confronting violators, Buehrle often hears, “I was only going to be in there for a minute” or “I was just waiting for somebody.”
Police officers can and do ticket cars for handicapped-parking violations, though the task is only a small part of their job.
Buehrle is the only person paid (making about $6 an hour) by the city specifically for the duty. (Her two peers are volunteers).
In accident as a teen
When she was 15, Buehrle went out with a friend in her mother’s new car. Buehrle let the friend, a 14-year-old boy, drive. He got off into some loose gravel, and as he tried to straighten the vehicle out, flipped over. The boy received a few stitches.
“I got thrown out of the car. If we had seatbelts, we might not have gotten hurt at all, but that was before seatbelts were in all the cars,” Buehrle said. “It broke my back, damaged my spine. But it could have been a whole lot worse. And I’ve always felt God allowed that to happen for a reason.”
The job doesn’t have a set schedule, but Buehrle typically spends about 20 hours a week in her modified van patrolling the streets and department store parking lots.
Between 5 and 6 p.m. seems to be the busiest time, as that’s when most people are getting off work and are in a hurry to pick up something for dinner or run errands before they head home, she said. Wal-Mart seems to have the most offenders, but that’s because it’s one of the few places that also has many more handicapped spots than it needs, Buehrle said.
