[Closed] Pavement parking.

Does anyone know why this is allowed?

Because cars are more important than people. How does anyone not know this?

In London its illegal unless specifically allowed.  the rest of the UK its only illegal if blocking the way or causing a problem.  Scotland is supposed to be introducing a law against pavement parking but I do not know the status

I complained to the police about one road near me where yo have to walk on the road because of cars on the pavement.  the reply I got was that access for fire engines was maintained this way so it was no issue

I may have brushed a few wing mirrors of pavement parked cars

Depends where you are. Pavement parking is illegal in London. Elsewhere it's less clear cut and is often at the discretion of the local authorities.

It's not allowed. It's just that it isn't enforced.

I'm thinking you've not been allowed to drive a carriage on the footway since 1835.

the reply I got was that access for fire engines was maintained this way so it was no issue

I used to work in local authority and was called to an issue of parking blocking a road. Fire access was raised so I asked FRS to attend. Their comment was that if needed, they'd get down. Afterwards, they would claim against the cars for damage to the appliance.

Cars have special status. I live in an area of narrow roads and terraced housing. In some parts, if cars parked on either side of the road there wouldn't be room for a vehicle to drive down the middle. So they park on the pavements. It's just normal. Wheelchair users and people with prams have to suck it up. And it's carnage on bin day.

i shared a house with a guy whose girlfriend did this when she visited. the pavement was wide enough to fit an entire car’s width, so she filled the whole thing.

when i pointed out that no pedestrian would be able to use the pavement, from the look on her face it was clear that that thought hadn’t entered her head.

We have a couple of traffic enforcers who whizz about on we scooters ticketing folks who're parked very egregiously, but it's their decision I think

It's difficult all round on narrow roads, but at least in my end, there's an unspoken rule... every one parks on one side of the road so the opposite pavement is free so prams and wheelchairs and the bin lorry can still get through.

I'm thinking of buying a pram with rusty bolts sticking out the side and checking that there' room for me to pass.

(No, I don't have any pram-age kids)

And cars keep being made wider and wider, it is going to get worse.

My little hobby is reporting the school run cars that park illegally on our street. 🙂

Outside of that I DO have a real life, honest.

It's to encourage wheelchair-users to mtfu and the occupiers of pushchairs to learn to fly.

You eventually get used to walking down the road, between two pavements full of parked cars. It used to anger me, now I just get on with things with an acceptance that pavements aren't for people. My change in attitude is only thanks to no longer having young kids, and not yet being elderly or infirm.

I don’t know why, but parking on our estate has gone downhill over the last year or so, you see parking on kerbs a bit, but it’s parking across from junctions, or next to the entry for a road that’s causing nightmares, you have cars coming out of side streets now having to blindly put their nose on the opposite side of the road due to poor parking, but nothing ever happens about it, council drive the camera can around daily but folk still park anywhere.

Personally I think it’s just laziness, people are the pavement in front of their house as an extension, some won’t even park in their drive, just abandon it on the pavement.

Cars have special status. I live in an area of narrow roads and terraced housing. In some parts, if cars parked on either side of the road there wouldn’t be room for a vehicle to drive down the middle. So they park on the pavements. It’s just normal. Wheelchair users and people with prams have to suck it up. And it’s carnage on bin day.

@doris5000 - Sounds like you live on the same road as me. Luckily the pavements are quite wide so you can still get a pram through easily, and we only park on one side of the road. If we didn't park on the pavement then it would cease to be a road, because you sure as shit couldn't get a car down it.

Just out of interest: do you have the same problem as us? Where there would be no point in having a decent car, as they constantly get clipped so that everyones car has scuffs and dents and you regularly come out to find your wing mirror hanging off?

This time next year it is banned in Scotland - as is double parking, parking at dropped kerb etc.

But yes, cars seem to have speshul status to be abandoned wherever the driver wants, and anyone else can just go whistle...

Just out of interest: do you have the same problem as us? Where there would be no point in having a decent car, as they constantly get clipped so that everyones car has scuffs and dents and you regularly come out to find your wing mirror hanging off?

Pretty much! The average car around here is, roughly, a 2010 Focus with a couple of dented panels. I haven't lost a wing mirror (yet) but that's only because I'll park a couple of streets further away in preference over parking in one of the risky spots!

I park on the pavement just outside my house, as do others. I live in a road that is about 800 metres long and there is a pavement for about 50 metres of it, the other 750 metres you have to walk in the road anyway.
Why do I do it, because if I didn't cars would not be able to get past or drive into my house or fence if they did try. It is not illegal to do so and the council have not put in place any local rulings so I will continue to do so.

Where I live the people who live on the corner have about 5 or 6 cars there regularly. They park all around the 90 degree corner. So as to not be in the way too much (!) they get as far onto the pavement as they can. So you can't get through with a pram or a wheelchair, you can barely get through on your own. So then you have to walk in the road, which is now a blind bend, and people come flying down the hill quite quickly (even though it's a heavily parked up cul-de-sac.

About 20m up the hill is a straight with ample on-road parking.

****s sake. In some ways I'm glad my kids don't play out any more.

I don’t know why, but parking on our estate has gone downhill over the last year or so

Not just parking. I've noticed a large increase in the number of drivers round my way who don't seems to understand (or care) which side of the road they should be on, especially when turning corners. E.g. yesterday - I followed a car turning left into a street roughly 90 degree corner, but rather than turning and staying on the left hand side actually turned after the centre point of the road on the right hand side. They knew where they were going - they live here! 2 mins later I'm getting out of my car and the next person turns right, into my street, but ignores the centre line and turns on the left hand corner! To be met by the other menace these days - DPD driver attempting new land sped record in streets that are clearly marked 20mph. weird

Our road is very narrow, and so there tends to be a bit of pavement parking to allow cars and vans to pass up the road. However, every now and then someone decides the pavement isn't for them and just leaves their car in the middle of the road, blocking traffic in both directions. Or parks on the very narrow part where there isn't any room for parking.

Usually its someone unloading the shopping, but apparently a couple of evenings ago the neighbourhood whatsapp was ablaze because someone had just done it all evening!

It's a shame wing mirrors are so expensive these days, isn't it?

My favourite was when I returned home to find a car parked in the entrance to our shared private driveway, blocking it entirely. The chap who owned the car came out and said "oh, it's fine, I know the people that live there!" I pointed out I lived there, and it certainly wasn't fine to me, and that he was blocking access to my house. He actually got arsey with me and punched his own car (WTF?) at being asked to move. He insisted he'd only be a few minutes longer!

I park on the pavement just outside my house...

...Why do I do it, because if I didn’t cars would not be able to get past

Wild idea, but perhaps park somewhere safer and less selfish then walk back to your house? I know, it's a pretty out there idea isn't it? I can understand why you hadn't managed to think it up for yourself.

People park directly alongside and under streetlights on a road near me because they're worried about their pride and joys.

Pedestrians just get to use the road.

My self control is not what it once was and so I make a deliberate decision to leave my house keys at home when I'm out running lest I get tempted to write the owner a sternly worded letter on their paintwork.

Best parking disasters I see are outside the church on Sunday service, there is a blue badge holder who actually parks parallel to their friends car, on the actual road 😂

This really gets on my nerves. As I don't like others doing it, I used to never do it myself. Parking on the street outside my house habitually, what I found was I was losing countless wing mirrors as my car was the one sticking out. It's a wide street so no excuse really. But with everyone parked on the pavement it allows for two lanes of fast traffic. Eventually one morning I heard an almighty noise and looked out of the window to see a big van crunched up into the side of my car. It had tried to scrape past and pushed off my wing which was snagging him so he couldn't just drive off as everyone else usually does.. The bloke was going absolutely nuts when I went down, blaming me for "parking in the middle of the road". Now I just put my wheels up on the kerb. A compromise between not having to replace a wing mirror every fortnight, and allowing prams etc past on the pavement.

It's stupid really because if everyone just parked properly. Ie, on the road, it would make it narrow enough to be one-way at a time only. Which would mean slower traffic past the houses. It's like people are parking like dicks and inconveniencing pedestrians not even for there own benefit. But just to allow others to tear past at 30+. But I suppose nobody wants to be the one 'sticking out'...

parking on the road.... pah, who buys a house without an ample driveway?!

peasants!

My little hobby is reporting the school run cars that park illegally on our street. 🙂

Outside of that I DO have a real life, honest.

I reckon by the time you've finished reporting the morning school run, it would be time to start the afternoon reports.

Depends on the street and the parking. The close behind us, if there isn't room on drives, then people will park up on the pavement on one side - always room for wheelchairs and pushchairs, always room to get past in a car. Other parts of the village, people park opposite each other and block everything

Wild idea, but perhaps park somewhere safer and less selfish then walk back to your house?

Not always as simple as it seems, and another area where a lot of car insurers (IME) need to get up to speed with the 'restrictions' that car owners face when unable to park at hoe overnight etc. We don't all live in nice places with lots of off-road parking space/wide roads, whilst trying to earn a living that unfortunately requires us to use our cars to get to and from.

Out of interest, how does one move a stationary vehicle? Without damaging it.

Just recently somebody had parked a van so obnoxiously outside my house, like six inches away from the wall so nobody could get past it. It was there for a few days and I kept looking at it out the window (getting angry on behalf of the people having to walk round it in the traffic) and dreaming of ways to move it into the middle of the road, where I hoped the council would tow it away at the owners expense.

A trolley jack under front axle and then push from the side maybe?

I live in one of the hated burbs. Pavement parking not an issue because the 1970 designers mostly seperated the pavements from the cars. Pavement at the front of the house. Road at the rear. The roads that aren't fully seperated are wide enough for cars to park without going on the pavement.

I used to take a unreasonable amount of self-righteous pleasure in scraping the pram between the pavement cars and the wall when the kids were little.

Obviously if I buy something then the rest of society must provide somewhere convenient for me to store it, cos if they don't I shall store it where I want anyway even if by doing so i deny others their basic rights.

These individuals and people who maintain 'cyclists are entitled ****s' are often one and the same.

I was surprised to learn that it's not actually illegal to park on a pavement, unless cars are blocking the pavement. I always assumed it was against some law.

I actually had some success reporting one spot to the council using FixMyStreet.com. There was a section of my commute where people had taken to parking across both a bike lane AND the pavement, completely obstructing both. A week after reporting it, the council had painted double yellows there and now no-one parks there! That may have been a coincidence I suppose.

parking on the road…. pah, who buys a house without an ample driveway?!

peasants!

Unless you actually need to drive along your drive for a while to reach the house from the road, who actually parks on their drive? Far better to park on the pavement outside and leave your drive empty.

Boils my piss. Anyone who does this needs to be sentenced to a day in a wheelchair or pushing twins aroud in a buggy.

Absolute zenith of BUT MY CAR entitlement. Where we live now is generally OK for it, but there is one twit who parks his shitey corsa 2 wheels on the pavement when he's visiting.

who actually parks on their drive?

Apart from the folks who've got a drive too short for their monster motor so its back end covers the whole pavement.

I've got to put my 40 ft motorhome somewhere you know.

Be a pity if butterfingers kept dropping No8 screws on the pavement on their way back from B&Q.

Expensive things No8s. Best ask the car-ists to check their tyres and return any they’ve accidentally made off with.

I’m sure their nicking your screws wasn’t deliberate on their part, so if they’d just like to return them no more needs to be said.

What's on the agenda for tomorrow's thread OP? The youth of today, why don't they get a haircut? Why don't policemen say 'allo, Allo, Allo, what's all this then?" anymore?

On tenterhooks here.

I'm in South London and there are streets where it's signed as allowed and appropriate. Moderately busy roads where housing has no off street parking, so pavement parking keeps traffic flowing as it can go both ways. However it annoys me massively if/when cars park to high and make it hard to pass on the pavement. The road my kids primary school is on is prime example.... Lots of parents trying to safely squeeze kids past the cars is hard enough, when one has a younger sibling in a pram and said pram doesn't fit past a car it's dangerous. I wish I had the ****s to try much harder to push my son's pram through the tight gaps before going out in the road to get past.

Apart from the folks who’ve got a drive too short for their monster motor so its back end covers the whole pavement.

Someone did that near my house recently (it was a second car trying to fit on the drive rather unsuccessfully). I found that their wipers were a good place to hang a freshly-filled dog poo bag from.

I was walking down a local road recently, on the road as there were cars parked fully on the path on each side. One of the cars pulled out, the driver looked annoyed that I was blocking the road...

I’ve got to put my 40 ft motorhome somewhere you know.

I believe that the appropriate place for that is right in front of your neighbours windows such that they can't tell if it's day or night by looking through them.
In any event it's certainly not on your own drive.