Panhandlers are a blight on American society.  Their presence contaminates the minds of the young.  We enable a social disease every time we contribute to them.

That being said, I believe that cars stopping to hand out cash and obstructing other traffic unexpectedly are deadly unsafe.  Those who voted on the Springfield ban on sudden stops to exchange things with pedestrians did a very good thing for everyone involved including the panhandlers who will have a motivation to improve their lives rather than endangering themselves and others by congregating on street corners and intersections.