Handicapped Parking Lots reserved for VIPs

Via http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2005/01/this_lot_is_res.html

Gist : A school organised an event and reserved the handicapped parking lot for the VIP. A handicapped man (Mr Om) was not allowed to occupy the parking space and was consequently denied the chance to attend the event. He wrote a letter to the ST Forum lambasting the School for its insensitivity. The school apologised publicly through the forum.

Imho what happened was that the organisers tried to cut corners here by assigning the handicapped lots to the VIPs, hoping that there would be no handicapped people attending the event. Of course this backfired in the worst possible way.

Comments in Sammyboy and MrBrown show an equal split in opinion on whether the organisers and/or the VIP was wrong. Additionally some felt Mr Om's response was uncalled for.

Imho who was right/wrong is not the essential issue here. It is about the dire lack of formal civil rights in Singapore coupled with a dire lack of knowledge of civil rights by the general populace. This is evidenced by the organiser's absolute negligence in handling such a matter. If a similar situation were to occur in US/EU there would have been a potentially more tremendous repercussion.

As ex-handicap commented, in the US, entities take great 'lengths [to ensure] public facilities go through to ensure free access to the wheelchair bound, from ramps to auto-open doors. It is a legally protected right.'

Simply put, if this incident had occurred in the US, it would have been a serious infringement of Mr Om's civil rights and he would be able to commence legal proceedings against the Organisers.

As such, this incident should be used as an example to highlight the importance of awareness to the existence of concepts alien to most Singaporeans such as civil rights which is sorely lacking, due to the traditional apathy of Singaporeans. While formal recognition of civil rights in the form of legislature may be too direct and sudden for our society (I will attempt a critic of the concept of civil rights and the potential abuse of such legislation in a future post), perhaps 'education' of civil rights in educational and employment institutions would be prudent since this has been proven to be the most effective way of getting an idea through to the standard apathetic Singaporean, rather than hoping for and relying on the 'common sense' and 'civic consciousness' of an individual.

The measures that the government has taken recently is laudable (eg, lifts installed in MRT stations) and shows that the government is adapting to recognise civil rights (albeit informally) which it failed to recognise previously (which is why MRT stations weren't originally built with lifts). If the organisers were more aware of the significance of such civil rights, they would never had opted to risk allocating the handicapped lots to the VIPs. In the end, they lost a bit of 'reputation', but it is trite compared to a lawsuit.

P.S For those who think that the VIPs are insensitive and are at fault, they fail to realise that the VIPs do not decide where they park. It is up to the organisers to arrange such trivial issues! If the VIPs choose not to park in the handicapped lots, they may be construed as 'being difficult' and not giving the organisers any 'face'. It also inconveniences both parties.