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1835 highways act (section 72) I think, prohibits driving a carriage on the footway, unless to gain lawful access to premises or in an emergency.
precisely - the act of driving up on to the pavement or off again is inherently legal - it is just that they need to see who the driver is at the time.
If any person shall wilfully ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers; or shall wilfully lead or drive any horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, or cattle or carriage of any description, or any truck or sledge, upon any such footpath or causeway; or shall tether any horse, ass, mule, swine, or cattle, on any highway, so as to suffer or permit the tethered animal to be thereon;. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F2; every person so offending in any of the cases aforesaid shall for each and every such offence forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding [F3level 2 on the standard scale], over and above the damages occasioned thereby.
Also
f not specifically prohibited, parking a vehicle on the pavement could lead to an offence of obstruction being committed – this could result in a fixed penalty notice being issued to offending vehicle/s. This is because parking on the pavement can obstruct pedestrians and wheelchair users, forcing them to use the road to pass a parked vehicle/s.
and
It should also be noted that unless you are accessing your property via a lowered kerb driveway, it is an offence to drive on the pavement even for a short distance.
from
https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q387.htm
There should be a minimum clearance for the pavement stipulated - you cannot park on the pavement uness there is, say, 1.5m of passage left on the pavement. Make it clear that a car is causing an obstruction.
If there room isn't then tough, go find somewhere else to park.
Cars have been getting ever bigger and wider over the years, why should the pedestrian, pushchair user, diasabled person in a wheelchair, or blind/partially sighted person suffer ?
Cyclists already suffer from these bigger cars because of less space on the road.
As a left field to this thread...
how about changing the parking laws, so that if any vehicle is illegally parked (what ever that means) and is involved in an accident, it is the fault of the illegally parked car, no question...
so i have a scratch on my bumper that is 300 quid to fix. Oh look, an illegally parked vehicle... bump... your fault mate, your parked illegally, please have your insurance fix my car...
would that make things better or worse?
That would lead to so much scamming it would be ludacris.
1.5m of passage left on the pavement.
Hmmm - given the average '1.5m' gap that is left by a driver passing me on my bike, that isn't going to make it any easier to get along the pavement with a pram/wheelchair/small child/guide dog/white cane etc.
This used to bother me a little bit until we had a baby. We live in a fairly busy area, with lots nearby so 9 times out of 10 we'll walk with the littlun to wherever we're going, usually in a pram. Generally we try and walk rather than driving wherever possible.
All it takes is on inconsiderate ****er parking across the pavement and I have to bounce down the kerb into the road, often with little visibility because of the selfish turd that's blocked the pavement and wheel our 8 month old down what could be a busy road, sometimes getting honked at by more entitled ****ers in cars.
So while I accept that there probably needs to be exceptions, if you think that this is OK then frankly **** you. I can only imagine how much worse it must be if you're in a wheelchair.
I've been known to have stand-up rows with the worst offenders, or to push the baby buggy through regardless.
However I do recognise it's a necessity of life in some areas - and the fact that most people in my area do it reasonably and without causing an obstruction highlights the fact that it's just a few thoughtless knobs causing issues.
Yeah I could take the moral high ground as I can get three vehicles on our drive and live in a fairly wide street - but plenty (many on lower incomes) live in narrow roads with no off-street parking and nowhere else "round the corner" to park their vehicles.
That would lead to so much scamming it would be ludacris.
What's he got to do with it?
However I do recognise it’s a necessity of life in some areas – and the fact that most people in my area do it reasonably and without causing an obstruction highlights the fact that it’s just a few thoughtless knobs causing issues.
+1
It's possible to agree with the concept and the new law but still recognise that there are practical difficulties in implementing it. If there really is nowhere else to park in day one of its introduction, what are folk supposed to do? My bet is that many will end up parking in other folks streets, so we will see many stretts becoming busier,sime that are currently OK will suddenly become single lane. And we can't expect everyone caught out by this to sell their car immediately, especially if there really is no alternative transport for them to get to work etc.
Of course, if would be great to see all of these enablers on day one too - better bus services, enhanced cycle infrastructure, wider streets, more off-street parking.
chicken & egg - gotta start somewhere
chicken & egg – gotta start somewhere
Yeah, I know. I still think that some folk on this thread are dismissing the reality of the situation due to their zeal/lack of empathy.
Folk occasionally post on our town FB group "shaming" some of the more egregious pavement parkers. Like the builders van parked 4 wheels on the pavement (road has double yellows and is fairly busy), blocking it completely.
I would say the comments tend to be unanimous that the person is a knob, just split 50/50 between the driver and the person posting the photo. A decent chunk of the population think it’s the considerate thing to do, because the traffic can flow etc and the road is busier than the pavement.
It all really goes back to the idea that car journeys are important and essential, and drivers are entitled to undertake those essential journeys because they pay for them.
The old lady walking down the pavement with her zimmer to check in on her house bound friend is worthless.
A child riding there bike to school is a worthless journey.
A family walking to park is worthless.
Children playing on the pavement is worthless.
All must give way to the car.
Changing the laws on pavement parking is just a small step to changing the mindset of society.
Empathy for the car drivers or for those forced into the road because of cars on the pavement?
If the alternative is them blocking the pavement then no I have no empathy.
A moped takes up much less room.
I still think that some folk on this thread are dismissing the reality of the situation due to their zeal/lack of empathy.
But on the other hand people are dismissing the problems of too much traffic because it is hard to solve.
So are people against ALL wheels on pavements or just ****s who actually block the pavement?
Just for clarity, like?
I'm in favour of the former to stop the latter 😉
Basically I think we shouldn't allow cars to encroach on pedestrian space. You can go about trying to solve that in a number of ways, but saying we have to let cars park on the pavement to allow traffic to flow is (IMO) not fixing the right problem.
Empathy for the car drivers or for those forced into the road because of cars on the pavement?
It doesn't have to be either/or. The world really isn't as black and white as you make out.
but still recognise that there are practical difficulties in implementing it.
pretty easy to enforce - surely?
just a traffic warden on a push bike with a tape rule - if there is less than, say, 2m of path available then it's a ticket.
As long as there is a single lane with down the road then that is good enough.
If there isn't then the council need to take a look at alternate arrangements - like pavement only on one side of road and a good crossing setup so it is viable.
If you buy a house somewhere with parking problems, buy a narrower car...
So this is actually a way of stimulating the economy through folk having to sell/buy houses and cars and mopeds?
Alternatively forcing developers to put suitable carparking in.
Be it at the end of the block or other wise.
And people realising it's ok to walk and that their car doesn't need to be right outside their door.
Instead of putting up shoebox flats on any postage stamp of land without adaquate parking.
The current rule of trying to enforce car reduction by not providing parking isnt working.
As above if people start having to pay to park they will think twice about needing one. It certainly makes me take the bus to town over having to pay to park the car.
I've said it before and I've said it again. We would do well to look at Dutch and Belgian cities where the domestic car is banned entirely from the center . Thus bikes, wheel chairs and mopeds are allowed.
City dwellers park their cars on out of center car parks.
"Alternatively forcing developers to put suitable carparking in."
Ha! There is a huge new development going up on the edge of my small town of 1000+ homes which will increase its size by a third and there are no new schools, surgeries or NHS dentists or safe infrastructure being put in - what chance of there being enough parking when there isn't even a proper safe access road to the development?
Don't bank on builders/developers doing anything but lining their pockets
Oh I understand how it works Winston.
But if people are going to be penalised for parkingabandoning their cars at will then they will either seek alternative transport or housing.
We legislated green space into new build(then promptly figured out how to tax it with factoring) then the same could be applied to parking of private cars
As above if people start having to pay to park they will think twice about needing one.
I like that idea, make all on-road parking PAYG.
And before someone says it penalizes those without a driveway, council tax as a function of property value (which includes the value of off-street parking, garages etc) does the opposite. The council tax pays for (drum roll) the road and pavements that are used as a car park!
Residential parking is an issue. My housing estate is a mix of 50's houses and more modern ones of varying ages built up until 25 years ago.
Those in the 50's have space for 1 car, even worse in the cul-de-sacs, and the roads are only just wide enough for two cars to pass. Many of the newer houses have space for one or two cars. Doesn't take long to realise that a 4 bed house will possibly have 2-4 cars due to children living at home longer.
We do suffer from really bad pavement parking, totally blocking a pavement. It would be better if people did park fully on the road, but it would make negotiating the 'estate' far more difficult.
My neighbour recently crossed the road to deliberately shoulder barge my wife's wing mirror, as she'd parked with two wheels on the curb for 30 minutes (with room to walk past) - our road is a stupid 'curve' and it's not actually wide enough on the 'curve' for two vehicles to pass. Funny thing is, said neighbour parks 2 vans fully blocking the pavement every day (he's working on a neighbour's house so drives 50 feet from his drive). He's a complete knob, but's taken umbridge to the fact that we have an additional car now (my son) so one car is parked considerately on the road by our side garden (not outside anyone's house). He's got 2 large vans and 2 cars !
I fully agree with stopping pavement parking, but I can see some argy bargy on housing estates as they were never designed with the view to more than 1 or 2 cars being there.
My sister's new estate is shockingly bad. Large 4-5 bedroom houses (expensive) but each house is crammed on, just a walkway between houses, and only enough parking for 2 cars maximum on the drives. There are already cars parked all over the pavements as being larger houses,kids at home = more cars. It's a nightmare if you are visiting, never mind living there. Her neighbour's daughter permanently has her car parked on the pavement outside my sister's house (my sister isn't bothered). It's a mess.
Don’t bank on builders/developers doing anything but lining their pockets
Exactly why goverment and councils should be (and should have been) legislating as part of a proper transport/housing/society strategy.
It's also why we're in the situation above where everyone and his dog has their own car and consequently 4+ cars to a household and nowhere to put them, that's not going to be sustainable long term.
Yes, it'll be hard to retrospectively fix issues like this, but that's not an good reason not to start fixing it, and fix it for the future.
Personally, I think there are bigger issues than a few cars parking on pavements.
you realise it doesn't really take much effort to put through these laws and this is what the government does. not all issues are big ones.
I for one welcome it particularly as it will make dropping the kids off at school safer and let people actually use pavements.
I fully agree with stopping pavement parking, but I can see some argy bargy on housing estates as they were never designed with the view to more than 1 or 2 cars being there.
The truth is that reliance on cars in their current form has to be a historical blip. Partially because of global warming (going from one car households in the 70's to 3+ hasn't meant each car does 1/3 the miles each, they probably do more miles each than the family Ford Anglia of the 70's). And partially because even if they were all zero emissions there is neither the parking space nor the roads to drive them on.
I say that somewhat hypocritically as we have 3* cars, of which only one actually gets used for commuting. But then we did buy a house with parking space for about 5 on the driveway even before you start blocking them in or parking on the grass, or even the garage.
Precisely because we didn't want to be parking on the road/pavement.
*and a skip sized trailer, and a boat. And occasionally other stuff.
The point about all this is that it gives a lie to the argument that people (have to) use cars because they are more convenient/practical than other forms of transport. Well, not if there is nowhere to park them they're not, and having to park them on the pavement in reality means that there is nowhere for you to park them.
We have both permit and free spaces in my street.There is a chap down the road from me who is too tight to pay for one of the permit spaces so when the free spaces are taken he just reverses end on into any small gap he can find and parks his car with about a foot gap for pedestrians to squeeze through.
I mirror his inconsiderate behaviour every time I squeeze by with the dog, by making no effort to not scrape his paintwork as I contort myself to get past. A few scratches hadnt but him off yet thought because his car is a piece of crap.
Why do you lot always want to ban everything?
We don't want to ban everything. We just want to ban shit things that harm people.
In our street everyone parks on the pavement so that you can only walk in the road, especially if you have pushchair or wheelchair. So I have to push my kid in the road around bend which is now blind because of all the parked cars. **** you if you think that's right.
If there isn’t then the council need to take a look at alternate arrangements – like pavement only on one side of road and a good crossing setup so it is viable.
You get instances in London where the council have marked out parking bays on residential streets - half on the road, half on the pavement
In our street everyone parks on the pavement so that you can only walk in the road,
Share a pic, to illustrate (from a non-identifiable view obvs).
You get instances in London where the council have marked out parking bays on residential streets – half on the road, half on the pavement
that is because otherwise it is illegal to park on the pavement.
Apparently Lndon is getting traffic lights that will favor pedestrains and even cyclists over cars. Was in the standard last night, can't remember what they are called.
I am still awaiting the pic of a raod where its essential to park on the pavement. Like Wrightysons example or any other one.
A quick question for all those who say if the road isn’t wide enough park somewhere else.
Round our way most of the roads are not wide enough and there is no where else to park. There’d be thousands of people all trying to park on the on the one or two available roads.
There’s literally millions of houses built in narrow roads in cities all over the country.
Where do you suggest they park? This isn’t a case of the Joneses bring too lazy to park a couple of streets away and walking but a) the nearest suitable street also has residents so there very little parking available on them as it is, never mind an extra few hundred cars or b) in some cases the nearest wide road is a mile away and is double yellows.
Yes I agree that some people park like idiots and totally block the pavement but short of banning car ownership (yes I know some people are up for that) you simply can’t put a blanket ban on parking on pavements.
@tjagain. Plenty round my way. Are you seriously saying you don’t have any narrow residential streets round your way?
Park where it is legal and where you do not use pavements. If it means you have to walk a bit then you have to walk a bit. You can even drop stuff off at your house then move the car Your convenience does not trump others safety.
a pic of the area you mean? google link if pos so we can show you plenty of parking?
Danny - yes we do - very much so. 30 flats on my street have 6 on street parking places on the block. However 100m away is plenty of free on street parking
But lets have a google earth link to these mythical places where you have to park on the pavements.
But that’s my point. In some residential areas, particularly the streets of Victorian terraced housing where there can be 100 houses on a short narrow road there is literally nowhere else to park. The surrounding streets are the same and the nearest main road is a dual carriageway with heavy parking restrictions.
Where do you suggest all these residents park?
For reference look at Parson Cross Road S6 and surrounding streets, all the side streets around Hillsborough Stadium, the back streets around the Sharrow area of Sheffield behind Ecclesall Road, a large number of roads in the Woodseats area of Sheffield, the myriad of side streets and crescents that make up the vast proportion of S5, much of S2 along the side of Bramall Lane, S8 Meersbrook, even the ‘nicer’ roads up Millhouses Park way S7 and definitely the roads of Netheredge either side of Abbeydale Rd.
The roads themselves are often not much more than two cars wide and often less, there’s hundreds of residents with cars who have no other options, buses, bin lorries and in particular ambulances and fire engines struggle to get through even when both sides of the road park on the pavement.
As for leaving 1.5m of pavement - most of the pavement are afterthoughts and only 1m our less wide.
Absolutely if the road is wide enough there is no excuse but some cities (and Sheffield is a prime example) have hundreds and hundreds of streets where it is a) heavily residential and b) lots of people own cars. In fact in many areas there are very few to no roads where you can park fully on the road.
To compound the issue we often found our cars scratched, wipers ripped off, windscreens spat on if we dared park outside someone else’s house on a road we didn’t live on.
I'm thinking of starting up a new driveway business.
It's been a hassle getting ours done this month - very few tradespeople and wildly varying costs.
With this new law, thousands will have to extend or create driveways instead of relying on public space to store thier private property.
#drivewayboom
danny - I'm off to work now - I'll have a look at that later. so you are really advocating blocking pavements completely?
No of course not though in a couple of spots on many of the roads round me it’s difficult to leave much more than a bodies-worth of width.
But, you absolutely have to park on the pavement in some form or another.
As I said earlier absolutely there’s people who park like cocks and cause real issues for others when there’s no need to just as there’s people who cycle like cocks (not on this form of course, as far as I can two no one actually cycles at all), drive like cocks and generally go through life being cocks.
However there are also a huge number of people who get swept up in such generalisations as ‘park somewhere else then mate’ who actually can’t.
Oh tj, it must be awesome living in urban utopia where everyone walks and there is a bus at every stop as you approach, just in case you need to go further afield. Not a single bus passes my house on a sunday or after 5pm anyday I believe, it's a mile walk in to town if you want to catch one. I don't mind that to be fair as we love walking and we shall be doing that this afternoon when we go further afield in to derby. I'm not going to link the road I mentioned because you will say you don't need to park on the pavement, you're right, you don't but people do bump up the kerb to aid the traffic on the route, and also to save their wing mirrors, however at no point do they block the footpath, theres still plenty of room.
However there are also a huge number of people who get swept up in such generalisations as ‘park somewhere else then mate’ who actually can’t.
Like things such as smoking ban or drink driving, this ban has longer term impacts on us.
We may choose to not have that third car, or choose to convert our front garden to drive, or to move in future walking distance from train/work etc.
Currently decisions are made based on the assumption you can park a car over a pavement or on a road - so private property being left in publicly funded spaces, which are now known to be antisocial, bad for health and environment.
I'm am desperate to get rid of one of our cars - for cost and to reduce our environmental impact.
n some residential areas, particularly the streets of Victorian terraced housing where there can be 100 houses on a short narrow road there is literally nowhere else to park.
hard to see how they weren't aware of that when they bought the property.
fact remains that the pavement is there for pedestrians, particularly vulnerable pedestrians.
and driving up on to the pavement is also illegal.