So walking home from school tonight with my small plus three friends we came across a van parked on pavement (only a pavement on one side as a small back lane type road). Gap he’d left was too narrow for me to walk through but kids could so sent them on path and i walked on road. It’s icy here and not somewhere used to snow so have seen a few drivers losing it on the roads and in general I like kids to go on pavement.
A couple of minutes after we’d finished walking along the back lane man came stomping after us and said “Hey excuse me your kids have just scraped along side of my van why aren’t you watching them”.
I asked if he meant the one parked on the pavement and he said not. I said well I was watching them and the only car/van they were near was the big white one parked on pavement opposite a junction. If they’ve had to squish past because of how you’ve parked then that’s unfortunate but I’m not going to tell them off for walking on the pavement.
He then admitted it was his van, that he had to park there to make sure enough room for cars and that I should have taken the kids into road not just let them push back as they might have damaged van.
I said I wasn’t going to tell them to get off the pavement and walk on a road in dim light and wintry conditions on the offchance zip or something might catch the side of a van. It would be nice in general if he could park on the road so no one had to which past. We then left with him hurling abuse about finding my car and keying it, calling names etc. Part of me thinks I should have said nothing but seriously AIBU to think it’s ridiculously entitled behaviour to think you can use the pavement to park just because it’s more convenient to you and to then be rude to someone for telling their kids to walk on pavement rather than road. Have added a diagram for reference as know it’s required where parking is involved. Pink is road with footpath on left and purple is van.