to be sick of parked cars on the pavement - long rant sorry!

[shivster1980]

Hello all,

I need to rant about this or I may just explode.

We are in the fortunate position of living close enough to DS's nursery (he is 3). It is on the school site though privately run.

On the way to nursery every morning we have to circumnavigate the sheer volume of cars parked on the pavement. We haven't used a buggy for ages but I know people who do and it is damn near impossible to squeeze a buggy through the gap left on the pavement once the cars are in place.

I have a few problems with this:

1. The cars should not be parked on the side of the road the school is on anyway. There are no yellow lines but it is school policy and they have been informed.

2. The general safety aspects of it. they mount the kerb suddenly (as there is a lot of traffic) and we have had 2 near misses personally since september.

3. Some (not all) drive along the pavement to rejoin the traffic !

4. A few weeks ago I was walking back home having dropped DS off and a passenger (child) swung their door open onto the pavement and just missed a child walking along. The doors obviously have to be opened - they are doors, but because of the amount of the car on the pavement already the door in question just fitted the gap!

My DH will mock me for using the 1,2,3,4 points! I annoyingly use it in speech as well and my DS has started to copy it!

Anyway - rant over! I feel better for that!

AIBU

Ok, should have been more specific, it is illegal to park on the pavement in the way the OP describes, as it is obstruction pedestrians. It is also illegal to drive on the pavement.
Either way it sounds incredibly dangerous and your local police should be dealing with it.

Well I saw a car parked in the middle of the pavement on the high street the other day. People could walk round it though. Pleased to hear that this is an absolutely fine and dandy thing to do

People are just selfish twats most of the time IMO.

highway code

242

You MUST NOT leave your vehicle or trailer in a dangerous position or where it causes any unnecessary obstruction of the road.

not sure if this means obstructing the pavement is illegal though...

Why the - what exactly didn't you like about how the car was parked, ISNT? Was it causing a problem? Or did it just irritate you?

Well, if they just HAVE to leave their car on the pavement, I think you just HAVE to leave a dirty nappy face down on their bonnet. Clearly, that is what is easiest and most convenient for you to do with the nappy, just as it is easiest and most convenient for them to park on the pavement.

obstructing the pavement is definately illegal. You need the Road traffic act and the highways act; the highway code is not the law.

YANBU

I especially love it when you're walking in the road to get round the car and it starts off without looking or indicating. Fortunately when this has happened to me I've been alert to the possibility and ready to shout and thump the car as necessary to protect myself.

Law or not, you should inform the police as they will be interested. I was told by a policeman to move my car parked partially on the pavement back in 1986, so I am sure it cannot be ok now.

"Many of the rules in the Code are legal requirements, and if you disobey these rules you are committing a criminal offence. You may be fined, given penalty points on your licence or be disqualified from driving. In the most serious cases you may be sent to prison. Such rules are identified by the use of the words ?MUST/MUST NOT?. In addition, the rule includes an abbreviated reference to the legislation which creates the offence. An explanation of the abbreviations can be found in 'The road user and the law'."

You think that parking a car in the middle of the pavement on a main shopping road ie driving it up over the kerb and into the middle of the pavement outside a shop doorway is not an action that warrants a ?

RTA 1988

22 Leaving vehicles in dangerous positions

If a person in charge of a vehicle causes or permits the vehicle or a trailer drawn by it to remain at rest on a road in such a position or in such condition or in such circumstances as to be likely to cause danger to other persons using the road, he is guilty of an offence.

so same again, so long as the definition of "road" includes the pavement, the it's illegal

Thanks again for the replies and the advice. I recognise that there are situations which necessitate being as close to school as possible, SN kids for one. It is for this reason that I do not challenge The school has a short drive and very little parking and for this reason parents are asked not to drive into the the school grounds (some regularly flaunt this too) and there is a permananent notice on the nursery door reminding parents not to drive on to site. However I am sure that people with mobility problems/children with SN could be the exception on site.

Betsy what is your point? Many of the codes are law and many are not. If you want to know if something is definitely illegal you look at the relevant law not the code.

This sort of attitude pisses me off so much.

There is a green space near us and last year someone had just driven onto it and parked, rutting the turf out with their wheels. They had obviously thought "well there's no yellow lines and the restaurant is just there so why not?". Well why not because it's rude and has damaged the environment.

I rang the council and they came and towed them. Ha.

I am still boggling that anyone thinks it is fine to drive a car up and wholly onto the pavement to park outside the door of a shop they want to go into on a high street.

I feel a "this country is going to the dogs" moment coming on.

GrimmaTheNome Your post reminded me off an incident in a certain supermarket carpark.

DH had DS with him who was then about 2 ish. They had parked and were walking across the carpark (on the correct side, hand holding, aware of moving vehicles) as DH and DS passed behind a parked car the car started to reverse - no warning. The car had gone from stationary to reversing in seconds and DH was so supprised he patted the boot not to be antagonistic just to inform the driver of his and DS's presence behind the vehicle. The driver in question leapt out of her car and asked (in a very aggressive fashion) why he had 'hit' her car. He explained that he felt she hadn't seen them. She then said "Well I don't look for pedestrians in car parks!" Priceless. I wasn't aware that one could levitate from the shop doorway to the car these days!

No on topic I know but another example of how irresponsible/thoughtless some people can be.

I remember someone telling me (in fact it was probably someone on MN) that although it may not necessarily be illegal to park on the pavement, it is illegal to drive on it.

So unless they have a crane in the boot to hoist the car on & off the pavement, they are actually breaking the law....

YANBU. I hate this kind of selfish parking.

Funnily enough was walking to school this morning imagining myself setting up a guerilla group to egg cars that do this unecessarily.

It was called 'Pedestrian Power' and our symbol was that one they use at school with the adult and child but waving sticks.

My mother's next door neighbour (in Dublin) was fed up trying to get the pushchair past the cars that were always parked on the pavement outside the local police station at a really dangerous bend. She complained to the police and they said as these people were there to report things to the police they were entitled to park on the footpath???? Anyway she knew this was rubbish and complained to her local TD (Irish MP) who wrote her a really nice letter saying he had now sorted out the matter and had arranged that a rail would be put on the edge of the pavement preventing cars from parking there. She wrote back thanking him and (I think) gave him a vote in the next election. Well, there are still no railings there, the baby in the pushchair is now 23 and the pushchair (which also did for three subsequent dc) has long been consigned to the dump. Meanwhile, the cars continue to park merrily there.

Shivster - oh yes, carparks. I've twice nearly had someone reverse into me and DD while we were on zebra crossings in carparks. The first time when DD was very little and DH was there too, he tapped on the window and gave the woman a yelling at good lecture.

My neighbour's visitors do this frequently. We live on a very wide, quiet residential street and yet they park huge american cars on the pavement (we are in UK). Thanks to this thread I have cut and pasted the relevant part of the Highway code on a flyer asking them politely not to do it. The really annoying thing is that there is enough space for them all to park in her drive.

Its a pity that its not as hard to get a car up a kerb as it is a wheelchair - just getting into the road to get round the sodding cars must be a problem.