รายละเอียดกระทู้

By CHRIS FUSCO Staff Reporter cfusco@suntimes.com http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/20864602-452/new-placards-aim-to-beat-disability-parking-cheats.html The state's new "meter-exempt" disability-parking placards will be distributed starting next year. They are expected to drastically reduce the number of able-bodied cheaters who use placards to park for free. The design — a yellow-and-gray-striped placard with a disability insignia — has been unveiled. The applications — about 55,000 a week — are being sent out. And based on the number turned in so far, state officials are hopeful a new disability-parking placard that’s being rolled out will do what Illinois lawmakers wanted: Drastically reduce the number of people who qualify to park for free at meters — and, as a result, cut down on the number of able-bodied cheaters who use disability-parking placards or license plates to avoid paying to park. The law that led to the new “meter-exempt permanent placard” was prompted by a 2011 Chicago Sun-Times investigation that found widespread abuse of free disability parking at meters in Chicago. The newspaper documented dozens of cases of able-bodied drivers using relatives’ placards, fake placards and stolen placards to avoid feeding parking payboxes. The abuses have cost Chicago taxpayers millions of dollars in reimbursements to Chicago Parking Meters LLC, the private company given the right to run metered parking citywide under the meter-privatization deal championed by former Mayor Richard M. Daley.