Handicap permit draws vigilantes

RE "CURB parking scofflaws" (Letters, Aug. 19): While it is true that there are people who steal, borrow, alter, or otherwise misuse handicap parking placards, this does not render all people who do not appear to be disabled deceptive criminals. I recently completed my doctoral dissertation on the experience of people with significant physical disabilities that are not obviously apparent, such as arthritis, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, sickle cell anemia, severe asthma, and cardiac conditions. One consistent thorn in their already pained sides are the do-gooders who have deemed themselves the vigilante watchdogs of the disability access parking space. People with hidden disabilities constantly find themselves accosted and interrogated by perfect strangers about personal medical information -- strangers to whom they owe no burden of proof regarding their accessibility accommodations.

To Dana K. Mahoney, who writes that she challenges "these people on their handicaps," I would say that if they are telling you to mind your own business, you're confronting some polite folk, because if you "would not stop harassing" me "until I removed the placard," I don't think I could muster such restraint.

AIMEE BURKE VALERAS
Concord, N.H.