Safe Speed Forums

Is it just me or is parking on the pavement a rather annoying problem at times? Now I'm not really talking about one wheel up on the kerb, but where a vehicle has been parked where it covers the vast majority of the pavement, often only leaving the off-side wheel actually in the roadway. I've particularly noticed this recently as I've been doing a lot of walking and have been forced into the road on too many occasions!

The thing that really bugs me is that on virtually all occasions there is absolutely no need to be so far on the pavement, especially on quiet residential streets. Fair enough a little bit maybe needed where parking is congested, but when there is no need to park so far on the pavement I just don't get why people do it? If they are worried about getting their wing mirrors clipped then they really should reasses the width of the road! It's more likely that some irate pedestrian would damage one then a passing car. And no, I haven't nor have any intentions of doing that! Though I do feel like walking through their garden.......

some cars near where we used to live may have been accidentally scratched along their full length on the pavement side as we manouvered past with the double buggy.

The alternative to causing this damage is to walk on the road with a buggy.

I would normally do anything possible to avoid causing damage to other people's property but when it comes to a choice between a scratch on a car or walking 12' to 15' along a busy (by implication, otherwise why bother to park on the pavement) road then it was the lesser of 2 evils. We did occasionally cross the road to avoid bad parkers but on one road in particular, there was only a pavement on one side so this was not an option. Add to this the fact that the cars were often parked so close together that you couldn't get the buggy out onto the road anyway!

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Too many cars and not enough roads again. It really is annoying and I always feel sorry for old people (myself included as I'm over forty), people with buggies & kids & shopping & disabled & people walkng with a stick or crutches.

Round our way they do it and then on rubbish collection day they carefully place their wheelie bin between the car and garden fence. It is particularly annoying as each house has a garage (full of rubbish) and a car parking space (now incorporated into the garden to make it bigger).

I understand it is not illegal to park on the pavement but it is illegal to drive on the pavement so they can't be done unless they are seen to do it.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Where I live we don't have a choice but to park on the pavement becuase the road's too narrow to get through otherwise. On one side of, next to the terrace of houses is a full, unbroken pavement and folkes on this side will park fully on the road. On the other side the pavement is broken by access into a provate carpark for the flats there. On this side people have to park up on the pavement. Its not really a problem though because the road's quiet and like I said, there's an adequate pavement on the other side.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I'd park on the legal side of my road, rather than the "half on the pavement" illegal side if only all my idiot neighbours, who get in before me, didn't insist on park 3/4 of a car's length apart.

OOOOOOOH!!!!

This means a length of road that can potentially park six cars usually accommodates four.

Sometimes they miscalculate, and leave me JUST enough room to park, and I do a seventeen point parallel park just because I KNOW HOW TO PARK PROPERLY!










Sorry, I feel a lot better now....

Johnny - please - i've got that problem - road about two cars wide - i have chopped my fence down , slabbed my garden and put up gates and park in garden - - reason - lost wing mirrors due to blondie who can't park. I take my works van home at times and ensure that it makes people park properly - why - someone can't get through - i send them across to her to move her car - unsociable , but works.( to stop silly comments - there's not enough room to park on pavement and allow pedestrian access- pavement wide enough , but next door have dropped kerb and they police it - so i need to park on road )Perhaps a more relaxed policy by my neighbour might be advantageous - but hey - she has "paid " for the privelidge " and intends to take advantage of it - A LA "MRS BUCKET")

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

It all depends on where you are, how many vehicles want to park, and what the road and pavements are like.

Now parking outside of my house on the pavement isn't a problem at all, as the pavement is roughly 15' wide, so you can easily park two cars fully on the pavement outside our house (next to the wall), and another 4 in front of the neighbours wall and still have an 8' wide pavement for the cyclists to swerve around the mothers and their prams.

However I suspect that you are correct in that it is a problem in many areas, and that is going to get worse, all thanks to "Two Jags" Prescott. Why would it be that lovable John Prescott can be having an impact? Well the office of the deputy prime minister has responsibility for planning, and PPG13 (Planning Policy Guidance Note No13) is explicitly about forcing a modal change in transport through planning restrictions.

ABD page about Two Jags policies that force others not to have more than one car (or in some cases to have no car at all):

http://www.abd.org.uk/ppg13.htm

Corrected link (ABD on is out of date) to review of PPG13

http://www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1145481

I'm not saying it is never, ever justified to have to park on the pavement. It can be helpful if having a bit of the car on the pavement would mean you can have two-way traffic on a through road, or parking both sides on a residential street. I'm just questioning the bizzare practice of some that park 95% on the pavement, 5% on the road for absolutely no reason. I just don't get it! Providing a fire engine can easily get through that's surely that's all that is needed? Also, while there maybe a pavement on the other side, it can be frustrating if you originate on the blocked side and the destination is on the blocked side as well.

In my street - if nobody parked on the pavement - hate to think of the result - know for certain that fire engines would spend a lot of time with one wheel on pavement -as it is they send out two to any call from my street - one from each end.But being built in 40's this street has wide pavements - but being cash strapped our county doesent see the need to get cars off the road at night - some of us have made our front gardens into car parking space to make room on the roads - just in case a fire engine needs to call at night.But "jobsworth " at County (and local level) insist that "a certain standard is upheld" ---FFS - WHAT'S more important - the apearance of a council estate , or the lives of the residents??

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I very often see people park on the pavement where there is absolutely no need to. I think for some people it has just become second nature.

I see this occasionally on my close, which is wide enough for one line of parked cars and one traffic lane, but even if you park on the pavement does not leave enough room to park on the other side.

Having said that, there are some situations where parking on the pavement is reasonable, so it can't be condemned in all circumstances.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Completly agree, it's the unnecissary blocking of a pavement that bugs me.

I was always under the impression that parking on the pavement was illegal and as such an offence. My son recently got a ticket from a council for just that and it is a very wide pavement(Swakeleys road-Ickenham-no parking restrictions). he only had two wheels on the pavement and was causing no obstruction to anyone. Whats the position here?

Dunno, but enforcement is certainly inconsistent. On my road, on my side, we have a wide pavement, and if cars park with 2 wheels up, then 2-way traffic is unobstructed. A few months ago, a small car was parked outside my house next to the lamp post, i.e. wholly on the road, and didn't move for a whole week! (I think the owners went on holiday with some friends). The queues that built up were awful, but disappeared instantly when the vehicle was moved. The cops around these parts seem to take a pragmatic view, perhaps because we often hear them zooming down our road with blues-and-twos going!

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