"Another effective enforcement tool: Citizens filing their own complaints against fraudulent drivers. According to data from the DMV reviewed by SFGATE, citations issued to drivers in the nine Bay Area counties caught abusing the placard are at the lowest they have been in a decade, with just eight violations in 2025. That number pales in comparison with the 303 citations issued in the Bay Area in 2017."
"There are several ways that someone who doesn't qualify for the program can take advantage of it: purchasing a placard online without having a qualifying disability, using one that is not registered to them or just parking in a designated spot without displaying a placard. Nevertheless, the impact remains the same. "Parking placard abuse in front of businesses disenfranchises customers with disabilities who can't find parking," Kody Leibowitz, a spokesperson for the California Commission on Disability Access, wrote to SFGATE in an email."
California DMV initiated focused enforcement against disabled parking placard abuse beginning in 2017, using sting operations and changing placard renewal procedures. Citizen complaints supplement official enforcement efforts. Citations for placard misuse in the nine Bay Area counties fell from 303 in 2017 to eight in 2025, and statewide citations peaked at 2,715 in 2017. Common abuses include buying unqualified placards online, using placards not registered to the driver, or parking without displaying a placard. Placard misuse limits parking access for people with disabilities. The state provides a process to appeal mistaken citations.
Read at SFGATE
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