I'm glad you all approve. Seriously. I do expect to draw a lot of attention and do a lot of talking about ALS in this baby!
I think I've got hubby on board with advocating for reasonable handicap parking. Yesterday he went to the hardware store and found both the handicap spots blocked with cones. He parked elsewhere and went inside to ask why. The answer? Wanna guess? They put them there to save them for handicap people because other people keep parking there! This is a small community and it may be that a business doesn't want to offend customers by having tickets written. Poor people. Matt just looked at them, from his chair, and explained that he is handicapped and couldn't park there. He may be the only person in a wheelchair driving in this area. Then last night we went out for dinner. The parking lot was pretty much empty, and there are two spots equal distance from the door. One is handicapped, van accessible. The vehicle with the handicap tag was parked in it, so we parked across from it in the van you can't miss, put a cone out in the space between the two so that no one would park there, and he rolled into the resturant in his chair. Now I agree that people walking need to be closer than people driving, and that's what the cone is for when he's driving, but when the spots are equal distance and empty I always took the "normal" spot and left the accessible one. I think the artwork and cone may help raise awareness about van accessible parking, if nothing else.