People parking on the pavement

[nesticles]

Sorry if this is long.
I am blind and have a 1 year old ds. I use a guide dog so pull the buggy behind me. Yesterday after picking up ds from dm's who had been looking after him while I had a KIT day I came across something that was both dangerous and made me very angry. My guide dog stopped half way along a busy road and wanted to walk in the main road. I was unsure why she was doing this so gingerly walked infront of her to have a feel, Someone had parked a car on the pavement leaving a small gap not big enough to get the buggy through. I couldn't walk in the main road around the parked car so I had to get a sleeping ds out of the buggy, I then had to put him in the sling that was lucklly under the buggy causing a complete melt down, then I had to take the seat of the buggy carry it to the other side of the car, squeeze back between the car and someone's brick wall fold the buggy and carry it back through side ways in the pooring rain. I then had to put the buggy back together and get ds back in to a wet buggy. I am so angry I had to calm down in order to post this today. Not only is this something dangerous to me who is blind but for many many people, mums with buggies, wheelchair users, parents with older children holding hands. Why is this not illegal? Am I being unreasonable to be this cross? What do you guys feel? Has anyone else come across this? Does anyone actually agree with parking on pavements?
PS sorry for typos ds is trying to help!

[AbbeyBartlet]

I came across this the other day - a lady with a mobility scooter couldn't get past a van that was parked on the pavement (it was hard enough to walk past.) I went into the office he was parked outside and told him to move his van. Parking is crap round here but that was taking the piss.

[Nocomet]

What angers me is when the council give planing permission for housing developments with nothing like enough parking.

I'm sure the ridiculous one in our nearest town is supposed to be green, no one owns cars and everyone uses buses.

Unfortunately no one has seen any flying pigs, green or otherwise, all the flats and houses own cars and it's almost impossible to drive through even though the cars are in the pavements.

I dread to think how they'd get a big fire engine into some of the flats.

[AbbeyBartlet]

And the poor woman couldn't even go into the road because it was a bus lane and there was tons of traffic

[duckandcover]

op under the DDA, think you can pull up the LA on not providing you equal access...not sure how often this has worked but looks like a valid point. Everyone should be able to use highways, not just those who can squeeze past or get on the road. I HATE when this happens with a passion. Most of us are drivers AND pedestrians; they are not mutually exclusive, and surely we all should be interested in protecting the most vulnerable users.

[PatrickStarisabadbellend]

I badly scratched a car with my dd's pram once. I was walking home in the pissing down rain, in the dark on a main road during rush hour. A car was so far on the pavement that I had to force the pram through.

I had 2 kids under 7 and a baby in a pram. No way I was going to out any if them in danger.

[BumpyGrindy]

I have done that too Patrick And I'd do it again.

[PatrickStarisabadbellend]

I will never put my children in any danger, nor myself. If I cause any damage to a car tough tits.

[AlpacaLypse]

I too have been on both ends of this. As a driver I was ticketed for obstructing the pavement. It's a stretch where the pavement is massively wide, and most cars are parked a little bit up on it to save their wing mirrors. At the time, I was also pushing a side-by-side double buggy with my twins, and I knew that I'd left more than enough room for it as I'd pushed it past after parking. The warden who'd done the ticket was actually still in the street and I asked him what I'd done - he said 'What if a wheelchair user wanted to get past?' So I demonstrated with the buggy. He said he'd written it now, tough, basically. I do wish I'd appealed to be honest, but I was so tired all the time in those days.

And it wasn't until I had the buggy to deal with that I appreciated dropped kerbs and learned to hate A-boards and bin day.

Anyway, laws do exist to prevent this, but there are hardly any people to enforce them. The wardens tend to focus on areas where there is time restricted parking, which around here always has painted bays on the road, or on the council car parks looking for expired tickets. They can generate far more per day in fines for Wiltshire Council doing that than by wandering round the residential unrestricted streets looking for the odd bit of pavement obstruction or double yellow line infringements.

[ouryve]

When you encounter this, call 101. It is an offence to park blocking a public right of way but councils don't currently have any powers to deal with it.

It does drive me up the wall when people do this. I have my 7 year old, with ASD in a Maclaren Major buggy and it's a hefty thing to be heaving up and down full height kerbs. I am quite tempted to carry little cards saying "if the road is too dangerous for your precious car, then why is it OK for my children?"

[ouryve]

Someone does annual FOIs to our council regarding pavement access in a particular village in our county. I'll have a look for one of them when I've collected the boys, as one of the responses explains the regulations.

[OddFodd]

I meant that it isn't either park on the road so a fire engine can't get through or park on the pavement. That's the false dichotomy. If you can't park without either nicking the pavement or the road, then it's not safe to park there.

[hmc]

I think the scenario you describe is awful and hugely inconsiderate.

However there are roads around where I live (village, rural) which are not wide enough in places for two vehicles to comfortably pass in opposite directions. I have seen vehicles partially parked on the pavement and it doesn't provoke my ire as long as the remaining pavement is wide enough for the 'largest' legitimate user, which is likely to be a wheelchair / double buggy

[ifyourehoppyandyouknowit]

I get very ragey about people who ignore parking rules. There is a walk in clinic in my village/town. It has double yellow lines outside the entrance and it is on a junction with a main road. When people park on the double yellows, even if they are only stopping for a few minutes to pick someone up, it means to get past you need to go onto the wrong side of the road, and anyone turning into the road could hit you, it gets on my tits. If you wait you end up with a queue of angry motorists behind you.

That and a local major shopping centre (big famous one in the north west) give me high blood pressure. Oh sweet jesus. The parking. Since no one can be arsed to walk anywhere, they park their tosser-mobiles up on the paths, on the curbs, in places that just aren't parking spaces. Just go to the overflow carpark you twats! The management sometimes block the paths (with dropped curbs) with massive concrete blocks, to stop people doing this and I have these moments where I wish I was the Hulk and I could just pick the blocks up and drop them onto the WAG style pristine white range rovers cars. HULK SMASH!

[Greyhorses]

Around my area ( rural) the roads are only big enough for a car to pass if we park half on the pavement. To park on the road would block it for all road users including police/ambulance/people trying to get to their own houses.

Not sure what else people are meant to do in the above situation?

The whole villiage is like this, unfortunately up north villages seem to be not very well designed for cars!

Obviously I wouldn't block the road and would make sure someone can pass but I don't get annoyed by cars on the pavement as long as they have left some room.

[Bewilderedotcom]

It's illegal to park on the pavement unless there are clear signs permitting it. Call the traffic police, the bastard would get a fine and maybe think twice next time

[polarpercy]

What annoys me around where I live is that cars park bumper to bumper along a road and then you get one idiot who has parked on the pavement in this line (does that make sense?). Meaning I start off pushing the pushchair along the pavement not realising and then encounter the jerk who has blocked the path. More often than not it means I have to turn the pushchair around and go back until I am past the cars or try and squeeze through a gap in the cars, so my visibility is reduced, and walk in the road.

[ouryve]

Found it
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/obstruction_of_pavements_2#incoming-403369

"tables/chairs on the footpath in Main Street is a local
authority issue"

"Obstruction of the pavements by vehicles and blocking
dropped kerbs are still the remit of the police."

[polarpercy]

Oh and the cars who can see what you are doing and why who sit behind you revving, as happened to us yesterday! Or the cars who drive behind or at you along the pavement to avoid having to wait for oncoming traffic (off topic I know!) and then have the gall to shake their head at you! There are some real charmers on the road around here.

[MostWicked]

This makes me so so so so SO cross!

Completely ignorant and selfish drivers. There is NO excuse. This garbage about the road not being wide enough or fire engines needing access. If you can't park without blocking access for other cars, fire engines OR pedestrians, then you can't park there!! It's not difficult to understand. Why is it ok to block the pavement for wheelchairs but not ok to block the road for cars? Are cars more important somehow?


I would vote for a giant munchy machine that rumbled along the pavement randomly once a month or so, chewing up anything on the pavement that wasn't supposed to be there

That is SUCH a brilliant idea!

Shame stupid, ignorant, selfish, lazy drivers by taking a photograph and posting on twitter.com/YPLAC

[polarpercy]

A friend sent me this, they don't have one in my area but the sticker idea looks good! Say no to pavement parking

[CrispyFB]

YANBU a thousand times over. There is loads of it round here, including on blind corners and it drives me bonkers, and I don't even have the same issues you have. I have the pushchair, or I have DS on reins and a crutch (am heavily pregnant) so I can't fit through either. I have two older DDs I need to keep an eye on too so stepping out into a busy road is not setting a good example. I have been a wheelchair user in the past temporarily and it was such an eye opener as to what a huge deal kerbs are, so regardless of safety, having to go into the road without a dropped kerb is a nightmare.

Unfortunately as a driver I fully understand that sometimes there is no alternative about parking - old streets built in a time when there were no cars, or only one car per household, or new businesses in an area where there were none. But even so, I would never park so somebody in a mobility scooter (so fairly wide) could not get through - I'd just have to find another road to park on.

[kelper]

I remember when ds was tiny, having a VERY loud fake conversation on my phone about how inconsiderate someone was to have parked on the pavement on a bend so I had to walk in the road. I got a few minutes up the road and said car drove past me :)

[HavantGuard]

I have heard rumour of very, very naughty people causing criminal damage by keying such cars.