Pavement Parking

[Gill]

I find myself increasingly annoyed by motorists who park their vehicles on the pavement, hardly leaving room for pedestrians to pass. The pedestrians who really struggle to pass are the elderly, handicapped and mothers with baby buggies; all people who need their lives made easier, not harder.

Does this only happen in my neck of the woods or is it endemic?

Gill

 

[woodbloke]

What you need is a nice sharp key ring or similar so that as you try and squeeze past.... - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

I think it's a widespread problem in many areas. It seems to me that each year there are more cars on the roads. However, there are also far more restrictions on where you can park (yellow lines, red lines, permit-only parking). Add to that the numerous trafic calming measures, like bollards and chicanes, which have resulted in a reduction in the number of places where people could park and you will inevitably have an increase in the number of cars parked on pavements. Another factor, of course, is the lack of public transport, which results in many people having no option but to use their cars to get about. Unsatisfactory but inevitable.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[MrJay]

Private car ownership is probably the single most common and detrimental to every-day happiness act of anti-social behavior in the UK; yet, because we're all at it, we choose to collectively plant our heads in the sand. Wo betide a teenager who dares ride a skateboard in a public place.

They dirty and foul building fronts and public spaces, there's the light pollution, air pollution, noise pollution, congestion, CO2, the bubble effect where otherwise normal people become short-tempered and inconsiderate behind a wheel, they're too often a menace to cyclists/horses/pedestrians (not to mention other cars), they require singularly expensive infrastructure, more public space is given over to cars than any other interest, it's frequently difficult to cross the road let alone walk on the pavement etc etc etc etc and one more etc just to emphasise how much longer this list could be. Car ownership stinks.

 

[Raggy]

Its a common problem, down my road nearly every house has some form of off road parking but there are still cars parked on both sides of the road (and on the pavements), worst of all is the idiots who park on the corners so you can't see properly if anything is coming the other way

 

[Digit]

You should try my neck of the woods! It's no coincidence that the winner of the last edition of 'Britain's worse driver' was Welsh.
I've had two cars written off and minor knocks 10 times in 19 years, all caused by the 'other driver' and I have a full NCB to prove it.
We have more body repair shops that any comparable locality and the largest breakers I've ever seen.
We have a 'T' junction sealed off as an 'accident black spot' 'cos peole kept pulling out in front of oncoming traffic and we even had one young lady park on a level crossing!
She claimed the resulting accident wasn't her fault!!!!

Roy.

 

[mailee]

I am afraid that is me! I park my car half on the pavement outside of my home. Having said that there is a perfectly good reason for it. I have a garage which is located next door but one to my home which is also full of wood. I live in a Cul-de-sac and my home is on the narrow part of the entrance to it. It is accepted that we park this way to allow cars into the bottom of the road. I have no drive or access to the rear from the front being a terraced home unfortunitely. I have had a couple of scratches in the past from kids bikes on the foot path but this has to be put up with. I think it is worth it as it means we have a larger garden than most of the other homes and this allowed me to build my workshop.

 

[Slim]

I live in a terraced house. Behind my row is a small cobbled dead end road which provides access to the rear of the houses. I have converted part of my garden into a parking space, as have a few of the of the houses. Two or three times a week I am blocked in because someone is too lazy to park at the front and walk around. They decide instead to just abandon their cars in the middle of the back road. I then have to go knocking on doors until I find the culprit. It drives me insane. :evil:

 

[Paul Chapman]

A friend of mine used to live in South Croydon. She had a car but hated driving - she used her car mainly to drive to Sainsburys on a Friday evening to do the weekly shop. Invariably, when she returned from Sainsburys someone had nicked her parking space and she had to park two roads away and carry all her shopping home.

She subsequently moved to Ireland - it was the only place she could find to park :lol:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Digit]

It drives me insane.

I had a similar problem at one time with a neighbor. She had a a drive I didn't, every Thursday she would shop, park out side my house then carry her purchases across the road and leave her car till bed time when she moved it.
I finally had to get nasty to stop her, so she then parked one house down the street and continued as previous.
Eventually me and the chap next door boxed her in so she was late for work next morning.
Why do we have to do these things when a little bit of sense and curtesy would make it unnecessary?

Roy.

 

[Slim]

Why do we have to do these things when a little bit of sense and curtesy would make it unnecessary?

I don't know Roy. It's not as if these people can't see the 4 or 5 cars they are blocking in. I don't understand why it doesn't occur to them, they always seem supprised that I am asking them to move! Thank god I am moving soon.

 

[Digit]

Where you moving to? Leaving Yorkshire behind?

Roy.

 

[Slim]

Yep. Moving to Bournemouth for my Air Traffic Control training.

 

[Digit]

Of course, I remember. Best of luck on that as well.

Roy.

 

[MrJay]

I am afraid that is me! I park my car half on the pavement outside of my home. Having said that there is a perfectly good reason for it. I have a garage which is located next door but one to my home which is also full of wood. I live in a Cul-de-sac and my home is on the narrow part of the entrance to it. It is accepted that we park this way to allow cars into the bottom of the road. I have no drive or access to the rear from the front being a terraced home unfortunately. I have had a couple of scratches in the past from kids bikes on the foot path but this has to be put up with. I think it is worth it as it means we have a larger garden than most of the other homes and this allowed me to build my workshop.

Accepted is the strangest thing.

I'm lucky enough to live in a quiet village in the middle of nowhere. The road I live in is smallish and laneish, but there is so much car ownership that despite the fact that every house has off road parking for one or two cars there is significant overspill onto the road. The road is narrow enough that if everyone on parked off the pavement on both sides you wouldn't get a car through. Cars on both sides park on the pavement. It's sort of understandable except for the fact that we have feet, bicycles, buses, trains, car sharing and every imaginable way of getting about - yet we all litter our street with a grotesque surplus of cars to our communal annoyance and detriment.

Another, bigger, road in the village tends to have bigger properties with space for two, three or more cars on their drives so there is little parking on the road. The road is wide and clear. For some reason the dozen or so cars that do park outside in the public space have some kind of 'accepted' thing going on where they park entirely on the pavement, blocking it completely out of some bizarre sense of citizenship whereby they don't impinge on the otherwise clear road. There really isn't much traffic - but apparently it's worse to restrict the road than the pavement. Go figure.

 

[Jake]

What you need is a nice sharp key ring or similar so that as you try and squeeze past.... - Rob

You can tell you live in the country. Being a Londoner, I just wait for them and stab them.

 

[tnimble]

Know the problem.

In our street several cars park on the pavement. For some of them it's very silly. They park the car into the diagonal public parking space but they forget to break. They keep on moving till they hit the pavement, the front of the cars starts to lift up, just before their front bumper crushes into the house they stop. Leaving more then half the length of the parking space empty and the pavement fully occupied.

There are also a couple of fellas park their cars in the inside corners of the few bends our street makes. The street is not very wide so only a car can pass the bend but the street is blocked for emergency vehicles who tend to be a lot bigger.

Then there are a few who have such a need to get home they don't even try to park. They turn into the street, see their home, hit the brake and leave the car. in the bl***y middle of the road for the rest of the night.

Our street has permit-only parking but a lot of cars that are parked have no permit.

Complaining about a dangerously parked cars or one without a permit has no effect at all. The officers are only on duty between something like between 10am and 3pm. Around that time the street is nearly deserted, everybody is at work or somewhere. When it is within working hours they say that there going to check it out but nobody never ever comes.

And then there are bicyclers, might kill one or more of them someday. bl***y kamikaze. I get literally ran off the pavement about a couple of times a week and have been physically assaulted 4 times because they lost control because I was in their way on the pavement. They have the offical status of cycler terrorist.

They don't seem to understand we have special bike lanes for them to use, and if there is no special bike lane they have to ride on the road. Only kids on kids bikes up to 9 years are allow to play and learn to ride on the pavement supervised.

 

[Harbo]

It is actually illegal to park or cause an obstruction on a footway, but the police don't seem to bother. I do not know of anybody who has received a warning or a fine?

A few years ago the fine was £400 but has probably gone up?

Look at areas that have paving stones and see how many are broken by vehicles running over them!
Vehicles should stay on the roads - they are designed for them. Footways are for pedestrians!

Rod

 

[Anonymous]

_____

 

[BradNaylor]

Invariably, when she returned from Sainsburys someone had nicked her parking space and she had to park two roads away and carry all her shopping home.

If she didn't have off-road parking then she didn't have her own parking space. No-one has a 'right' to park on the bit of street outside their home. Presumably she parked two roads away outside someone else's house. Did she not consider that she was 'nicking' their parking space?

I cannot understand why someone who hates driving and uses their car so infrequently would want to own one. It would be far cheaper to take a taxi to and from Sainsbury's every week.

In fact it would be cheaper to hire a car for one day a week rather than owning one.

Cheers
Dan