to think that if you can't park your car without blocking the path, it's not a safe place to park?

[Thurlow]

I maybe BU. I don't drive. But after nearly half a dozen scrambles around cars in the pissing rain with no raincoat or rain cover for the pushchair I'm in the mood to be U.

But if you park the car on the road with two wheels on the path/kerb and you end up blocking 90% of the path so your car is enough off the road - that's still not a good place to park, is it?

Couple of instances of me having to take the pushchair onto the road to get around a car, couple of instances of having to go over someone's front lawn to get past. And that's a skinny little stroller. God knows what someone in a wheelchair or with a double buggy would've had to do.

That's shit parking, isn't it?

lozer

My kids told me off for kicking a car parked on the pavement after the toddler looked out the side of the double buggy and whacked his head on the car. Then there's my neighbour, who must notice I walk past her house at least four times a day with a massive buggy but just loves to park on the pavement. Or the lovely van drivers who mount the pavement and drive straight at me/buggy/kids walking along so they can park illegally. Grrr.

Yep! He hates anyone near his house. The stupid tit shouldn't of bought a house next to an alleyway then.

He makes it so pedestrians have to walk on the road to get past his house. He's installed cameras and made his house look like a fortress.

I think he's been watching too many films

Thurlow if this issue bother you so much, you should take it up with your local council.

YANBU. It's obvious. Depressing you'd need to 'take it up' with anyone.

Near where we live there is a pub that gets busy on Sundays as they do a roast. People park all round the corners on both sides of the road (clearly never hear you shouldn't park on or near a corner!). This last Sunday the entire road was blocked as cars were coming up to the bend in both directions, with no option except to reverse back around two corners to let the other driver through. All the locals were hanging out of windows (because there was lots of honking so we saw something was up) and we were very amused to see the twits who'd parked the street up completely unable to get their cars out.

Sometimes, idiots really show themselves up.

We have to do this on bin day - otherwise the bin lorry cant get up the road. Its a pain in the arse for everyone - not just you.

Great idea lozster !

Xcountry - If a bin lorry can't get up the road without everyone parking on the pavement, how would a fire engine get through in an emergency on a none bin day when you don't park on the pavement?

What ever the circumstance, you are still committing an offence if you are parked so as to obstruct the pavement for pedestrians. Whilst I can understand that you want to own a car + park it conveniently to you + get your bin emptied - you have no right to do so. The pedestrian DOES have the right to walk on the pavement.

Bin day should not be a 'pain in the arse for everyone' - it is you making it a problem for pedestrians. Obstructing the pavement is a nuisance for the able bodied but life limiting for the visually impaired and disabled. On the school sports day I mentioned in the previous post, pushchair users were turning back and having to make a half mile detour. There maybe people near you who are not going out on your bin day because of the parking or having to change their plans. Be under no illusion, this is not just an event of random occurrence effecting everyone equally - the cause of it is you. If you can't park without committing an offence then you should not park. If the ultimate end to this chain of logic is that you can't own a car where you live then that is your answer. Not every property is suitable to car ownership. You have no right to requisition the pavement.

Surely if parking on the road means blocking the road so much a bin lorry can't gets through then you're parking dangerously anyway? Ambulances, fire engines etc. And by parking up on the path it then means pedestrians can't get passed all day either?

I could write to the local counciller and ask people to try and enforce the law. Or people could just park sensibly? As a pp says, some streets just aren't designed for multiple cars and if you buy that house then you have to remember you might be parked a street away.

I do kind of agree but in my parents street a fire engine couldn't get down as the street is narrow with parking both sides, they had to damage several cars, whos owners were not at home, to get through.

The police have requested that the cars are parked partially up on the kerb. Generally people are considerate and there is no reason pushchairs can't get by also, I have never had any trouble doing so.

YANBU about those that park like twats though especially if it is completely unnecessary.

I live on a street with a school and we're a dead end. Every school day, we have parents who park across driveways, on the speed bumps, on the white lines, straddling 2 parking bays, on the pavements... It drives us nuts. the school aren't all that bothered, despite numerous emails and letters. We have resorted to contacting a local councillor and hope perhaps the council will consider us as a no-parking street during school drop-off/pick-up times.

One mother famously told us that as she had children, she could park where she wanted, regardless of road laws. Another mother, on finding a note under her windscreen wiper (courtesy of DD who is currently on crutches and reliant on someone taking her places in the car) read the note, scrumpled it up and dropped it on the road before driving away.

Oh - and the school catchment area is about 400 metres. Perfectly acceptable distance for a child to walk. Some parents even, literally, drive them round the corner, a distance of perhaps 500 yards. Does my head in!

Our road is a nightmare. People with space on their front for a second car don't, people have 3 car households mostly cos their youngsters can't afford to leave home, people have their business vans parked out. It's a nightmare to get on and off my drive because of the double parking. We regularly get lorries stuck coming down our road. I think a fire engine would just push through or something.

We have an inconsiderate twat living up the road, I can never get the pushchair past the car. Why she doesnt just park on her drive I dont know

Ooh yasooooooonbu! I was walking the dog last week with DD in the pushchair and saw a car parked on the footpath. As I got closer to it (but still a bit of a distance away) a woman got out and started to cross the road towards a building which had its own, half empty car park! So I shouted to her as loudly as I could and said 'EXCUSE ME! PLEASE CAN YOU MOVE YOUR ILLEGALLY PARKED CAR? IT'S A FOOTPATH NOT A CAR PARK!' She didn't even say sorry, just got back in and drive into the car park

I think some people feel they have to park as close to their destination as possible. So if they are visiting a friend whose house is on a bend they will park partially on the pavement outside rather than 20 metres down the road. Essentially a lot of people are just lazy.
Also people think they are being considerate by leaving more room for other cars to get by. Not thinking that there are other forms of transport that need to be considered- foot, pushchair, wheelchair, bikes etc.

If people didn't park half on pavements around here there would be no room to anyone to get through on road. Fortunately there normally is room for buggies etc.

Its the estate planners that need shooting! Most families have two cars or at least have visitors. Its all profit and more consideration should be in place for parking and relieving the stress it causes to residents than squeezing that extra profitable house in!

House builders/planners are also to blame. New houses have to have a certain number of car parking spaces depending on number of bedrooms. Which is good.
A garage obviously counts as a space but the standard garage they build is generally too tight for a standard car these days. So that now is no longer a car parking space.
Also, the new housing estates around here have really narrow roads which means these people who can't park their cars in the garage have to park on the narrow street - generally up on the kerb.
If house builders weren't so greedy we maybe wouldn't have these problems in the modern developments.

Cross-post with crash

I Never EVER EVER park on the pavement (except in marked bays which allow room for pedestrians). It's one of my pet hates. If a car is parked in such a way that parents (usually women) have to take their pushchairs into the road, then I pull the wing mirrors off and leave them on the roof of the car. My wife is horrified, but it's the only thing that seems to stop the idiots.

We now live in the countryside where this is less of an issue. My anger levels have reduced significnatly.

Parking on the pavement is my pet hate!

YANBU

It's the same with old houses too though - not saying that new builders are blame free either, some new estates are titchy - but my town is lots of terraced roads, no garages or drives. There's barely enough room for everyone to have one car, and most people now have two.

You're right that people don't want to walk. There's better and easier parking a road or so away where there are bigger houses with drives and garages, but that means walking back to your house.

It's an annoyance for people with pushchairs, but for some other people it is downright dangerous.

I think there is legislation on new build estates that actually restricts the number of parking spaces per house but I could be talking utter crap!!

It's my opinion that you are certainly allowed to fold back the mirrors on any car which is on the pavement, so that you don't accidentally damage them.

You are also entitled to do your best to squeeze past the car. If they didn't want it scratched, they wouldn't have put it there.

If you have ever tried to get an adult in a wheelchair up and down a curb, you will know that it is about 20 times harder than a buggy.

I disagree that people park on the pavement just to avoid walking a few minutes, in the estate where my parents live the whole estate is the same. There are a few garages with drives but very few. I have never seen anyone park so badly that a buggy can't get through but I really can't understand why people would park dangerously on the pavement for no reason.

I think it is safer in some places to park on the pavement as having a tight gap to walk past a car with a buggy is less dangerous that an ambulance or fire engine not being able to get through in an emergency but as always it always relies on people being safe and sensible.

Actually, people dopark on pavements to avoid walking a few minutes.

I remember last year (or possibly the year before), there was some uproar about a PCSO who interrupted a nativity play to get the parents to move their cars that were badly parked on pavements as close to the school as possible.

I googled the school's location and it quite clearly showed that just a couple of minutes walk away there was a large public car park.

And what the self-entitled parents failed to acknowledge was that they'd been blocking the road to the surgery nearby, which could have ended badly if someone had needed urgent attention.

Sorry Fry what I should have said is not ALL people park on pavements to avoid walking a few minutes. Parents at school seem to think it doesn't apply to them regularly at our school, not on pavements but generally bad/dangerous parking.