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

I seem to have a 'nice' problem. Sorry

I am tempted to have my keys in my hand pointing car-ward when squeezing past one of these of the pavement. It's a 'nice' thought .

I just content myself with bashing all the school bags against the car and twanging the wing mirror if they are in my way.

menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1345655_mum_blocks_off_road_to_stop_school_run_parents_parking_on_pavements

From a blog

Hi Graham, 2 things really

1. I am new to this bloging or whatever you call it so I really don?t know how to link.

2.What I am going for is the DRIVING ON THE PAVEMENT which is a road traffic offence and can only be issued by a police officer.Local authorities that are CPE just say the same as the police ?We havn?t got the resourses to deal with all the problems?. An area that I am pursuing is the insurance angle.I have spoken to the legal departments of 3 major insurance companies and posed the same hypothetical question,?If a car is parked or driven illegally would the insurance policy be valid.Without hesitation all 3 companies said the insurance policy would not be valid.

and .. needs ratification

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/10-11/89/section/28

forgive the olde world langauage but almost certainly still stands as law for motor vehicles

and finally

If it's the law for segways ... surely a car is no-no

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/segway-rider-guilty-of-travelling-on-pavement-2187482.html

Agree in OP's example, that car drivers are being vvu. However, in some streets you have to partially park on the pavement.

Where I used to live it was an area full of small narrow victorian streets with terraced houses. No driveways and the roads were too narrow to park on and for a car still to drive down the road. It was far from ideal to partially park on the pavement, but really had no choice. The arae wasn't built with cars in mind.

In terms of parking on pavement outside a shop - the owner may just have been a PITA. But in our town centre you can't park on the road as you will block the way for buses. So people delivering or picking up very large and heavy items have to park on the pavement.

I have spoken to a traffic warden before doing this and told it was fine as long as I was quick. The item was so heavy I couldn't carry it into my car.