Would you like a ban on cars parking on pavements?

[StarsBright]

‘MPs call for blanket ban on car parking on pavements.’

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/car-parking-pavement-ban-britain-uk-government-a9096991.html

Having needed to use a wheelchair recently I’d really like to see a change in this behaviour. It makes it difficult to get around when cars park on the pavement without leaving enough of a gap for a wheelchair to get through. It’s also frustrating and dangerous for those with prams, the partially sighted and pedestrians.

I do understand that it’s not an easy issue to solve and some roads are very narrow, however there has already a ban in place in London for decades.

I’d be interested to hear thoughts on this!

@adaline when pavement parking damages had or water mains and these need to be repaired it causes massive disruption. It's also a cost born by customers.

No because the UK isn't the same everywhere you go. In my area for instance the pavements are very wide and the road is comparatively narrow. Residents park on the pavements leaving room for both pedestrians and traffic to get through. Anyone parking in the road would cause obstruction.

So a blanket rule like this would not make sense for all areas. It would make more sense for local councils to be tougher on parking in areas where this is a problem.

that should say gas not had.

It would surely make sense for council to paint where on the pavement cars can park.

And improve public transport while they’re at it, and cycling infrastructure, to encourage people to ditch their cars.

Io think if it's done if needs to be sensibly or appropriate

Our street has very rarely got one or two cars parked on it so plenty of room for passing etc but there are still a couple who insist on parking on the pavement. I can't fathom why

Sunday we went for a walk round the corner from us was a car parked on the pavement, rest of the road clear, we had to squeeze through passed it. I did remark to the owner it was Twat parking and inconsiderate and I do judge those who did this. Hence Habib and his kitchen is on our off list

No, as the roads and streets are too narrow.

“Multiple car ownership” usually means “two adults working” which is due to the fact you need two salaries to support a mortgage these days.

Victorian terraces are one thing, but I live on a housing estate 10 years old and it still wasn't built with wide enough roads or adequate parking - most houses have a garage but they are all too narrow to get a car in and are therefore just for storage. Terrible selfish pavement parking is rife, and when I was pushing DS into town in the pram (I didn't have a car) I frequently had to walk into the road.
It has recently improved as our local PCSO team has implemented a crackdown so they've been coming round every week ticketing obstructive parking.

“Multiple car ownership” usually means “two adults working” which is due to the fact you need two salaries to support a mortgage these days.

Plus two DC each with a car, who can't afford to leave home.

when pavement parking damages had or water mains and these need to be repaired it causes massive disruption. It's also a cost born by customers.

Yeah, I appreciate that, but people generally aren't doing because they're lazy or just don't want to walk further to their home. They genuinely have no other option.

Yes, households have multiple cars - but that's because they generally have two adults who work outside of the home. Not everyone lives in a utopia with buses and trains every thirty minutes, with ample off-road parking or with jobs within walking/cycling distance from home.

I appreciate pavements aren't designed to have cars parked on them 24h a day, but that's not the fault of the people who live there. The government hasn't updated the infrastructure to allow for the increase in car ownership. Where do you want people to park? Would you prefer them to block the road and stop ambulances etc. getting past instead?

I drove through a brand new estate last week, and they still dont have wide enough roads or drives big enough for parking 2 cars properly.

It's about using as much space as possible to maximise profit by squeezing as many houses in as possible.

No, it shouldn't be blanket, councils should set their own anf it should be road dependent. Transport links here are bad and people bought their houses with the council telling them to park partly on the pavement (lines were meant to be painted but budget cuts made that never happen). Pavement are wide here with the grass verge that cars park over. You can easily get 2 buggies side by side still.

Road obstructions should be dealt with instead: blind bend parking, double line parking, actual obstruction of pavements and blocking dropped kerbs. They cause far more issues here with corners blocked so vehicles can't get through and sudden obstructions while driving/cycling/riding around a bend.

All a blanket ban would do in my area is panic the council and cause uproar with the townsfolk.

We also have 3 disabled spaces on my road and the adjoining one, right outside the people who need its houses, ban parking on the verges here and those people would either block the road (if they could park) or have to park a long walk away.

As a pedestrian with a buggy and two disabled relatives, one with a wheelchair and one a walker, i do agree something needs to happen about parkers who block and obstruct. However, i think MPs should call for a review and decisions from each council, not blanket ban. They should then actually enforce this in known problem areas.

Around grans way the roads are huge, no issues parking as you can still get 2 cars driving by easily. A ban would only be a positive thing. However her neighbour routinely parks on the pavement (tiny) and blocks it as he has a sports car. Arseholes like this are pretty arseholey in other ways though, he also blocks her drive a lot since he knows she can't drive much.

Not sure why that couldn't post as one but i kept getting the 'opps' message.

I saw a post upthread complaining that ‘the government’ hasn’t updated the infrastructure to keep up with car ownership.

How’s that going to work, then? How is the government going to conjure up plentiful car parking in the middle of south London, or York, or Bristol, or other areas with lots of Victorian terraces? Demolish a few streets, maybe?

I don’t think most people would cheer at their taxes being spent on buying prime land in those areas to turn into free car parks for residents, even if those areas weren’t already built up. I’d sooner mine was spent on the NHS and old people’s pensions, thanks.

Where I do think government could intervene is around how and where we work. My last job was on some wretched out of town business park, deliberately built with only 2/3 of the car parking capacity to ‘encourage people to car share’. Irrespective of where you live. How do you car share when you live ten miles from your nearest colleague? No buses, 2 miles from nearest, poorly served station. How else do you get to work if not by car? If councils stopped giving planning permission for such places and encouraged businesses to open up in towns where people actually live, and with proper transport links, people might drive less. It’s so short sighted.

I think that working from home should also be encouraged. Most traffic appears to be commuters, or children being driven to school instead of walking.

Of course, you will always get lazy, selfish people who wouldn’t dream of taking a bus even if it called at their house with a liveried driver, but better public transport would definitely help.

Having said that, my view is that if your road can’t accommodate cars, you need to find a different place to park instead of jamming your car onto the pavement. Deciding that your car is more important than people using the pavement, particularly buggy and wheelchair users, isn’t on. Don’t live on a narrow terraced street if parking outside your door is important to you.

The ‘but parking on the pavement lets emergency vehicles through’ argument is bobbins, by the way. The fire engines would get through even easier if the street wasn’t choked with cars.

A blanket ban would never work - it's the sort of headline-grabbing idea that Boris would come up with, like a London-wide 20mph zone, which I think is unworkable; and why are MPs talking about this anyway, has Boris resigned and they're trying to distract us? I think there was one area that tried a universal ban on pavement parking, and the result was blocked roads everywhere, and the police pleading with residents to park on the pavements again.

The question of garages is an interesting one: in my town, if I see a garage door open, it's very rare that there's a car behind it, or space for one. I bet that less than half of garages are actually used for storing cars, or occasionally the classic car that only comes out once a month. So people use pavements to park on, instead of their garages.

Well, maybe if they can’t park on the pavement they might start using the garages.

The ‘it will never work’ argument was rolled out for the smoking ban as well, I recall. You can’t ‘manage it locally’: people are too selfish. You think residents on a narrow road are going to collectively manage parking to leave space for buggy or wheelchair users who don’t live there, to their own detriment? Are they hell!

Well, maybe if they can’t park on the pavement they might start using the garages.

The new builds I've seen would struggle to fit a pushchair in their "garage". Besides which narrow drives and 2-cars per house mean whoever's parked in the garage gets a rum deal ....

‘Tiny garage’ does not equal ‘god given right to block the pavement’ though.

It's not so much a tiny garage, as a big car

As long as there’s enough space to get past I don’t see the big deal. Besides, since having DS and using a pram it’s really opened my eyes as to how shit a lot of the pavement are - not level, cracked, much too narrow etc - I have no idea how a wheelchair user could comfortably get from place to place where I live - to be fair I don’t really see any. Parked cars are the least of my worries.

Don't really know what the answer is but when my husband and I walk to the shops he uses a walking aid and very often the pavements are blocked with stationary cars so we have to step in the road. I am the lookout as he is profoundly deaf, doesn't hear any traffic, and my stress levels go right through the roof!

A well-written blanket ban could easily include phrases such as "except in areas designated by a local council where pavement parking is permitted."

I have in fact seen such areas, with signs to notify car users and I seem to remember actually marked out with a white line on the pavement.

And yeah, I'm not impressed at the appeal to "ooh, think of the ambulances". The most obstructed road round near me is a main road on which traffic zooms at >50 mph (legally or otherwise). If a car blocks the pavement I have to back up to the nearest place where

a) there is a dropped kerb, and
b) the dropped kerb itself isn't obstructed(!)

and then trundle along the middle of the road, outside all the parked cars, until the next position where

a) there is a dropped kerb, and
b) the dropped kerb itself is not obstructed.

This can be 50 to 100m.

So, a wheelchair or scooter in the middle of a B road. Not dangerous at all, hey?

I can't even get to the pedestrian crossing to use the other pavement, because the regular worst offender parks between my house and the crossing.

Fortunately there's a piece of broken kerb, almost opposite a driveway, that I can use as a makeshift dropped kerb and get out that way.

I bloody well would. My front door opens onto the street, and sometimes I almost can't open it for cars parking so close to it.