In downtown WinstonSalem NC, there is (or at least was) an interesting situation regarding parking. In the area around the courthouse/federal building/jail, almost all of the onthestreet parking spaces are (coinoperated) metered. It is the policy of the city of WS that if you park in one of these spaces AND you display a handicapped tag, you park in those spots all day long WITHOUT having to refeed the meter. Actually, without feeding the meter AT ALL.
We thought this was interesting, since we noticed that almost every parking spot in that rough area was occupied by a car displaying a hanicapped permit, that had an expired meter, so we recorded the cars parked there. This gave us an idea of what cars to look for, because it was usually the same cars day after day. THEN we shot video of the drivers of those cars, and observed their relative level of mobility. The observations were interesting, to say the least. This story was produced and aired in 2007. At that time, the city of WS discussed changing the policy, but not action was taken in the immediate 2 year period afterwards. I do not know if any action was EVER taken.
Story written by Tanya Rivera & Alan Wagmeister.
Video shot by David Renner, Dave Fields, and Chris Keimig.
Video edited by David Renner.
Story produced by David Renner, Alan Wagmeister, and Tanya Rivera.
Story aired April 26, 2007 on WFMYTV 11PM news.