Pavement parking…does anyone actually GAS?

I find it always best to see if the buggy can be forced through the gap that a car parked on the pavement has left. Sometimes they fit through with a small run up and breathe in as i go past.

here you go found the pic I sent to council, as I said on the pavementpavement parking by D0NK[/url], on Flickr

Regarding driving across the pavement, I thought you could only drive over a pavement at a dropped kerb?

that was my impression but as you I’ve no idea whether it’s fact or just made up. I would have thought bouncing up a kerb to avoid parking on the double yellow lines that run along the kerb would, I hope, actually be illegal, but again no idea.

Some clever chap has devised a WASP scale for objectively measuring the bellendery of parking

I think double yellows apply to the pavement alongside the road as well as the road itself…ie up to the property boundary…bumping up onto the pavement doesn’t make you immune from double yellows..it just compounds the twattery

Dunno what GAS means, but this really gets on my nerves. On my old street I was the only car that never did it, as such I had my wing mirror smashed a few times, and also my wing completely taken out. The guy then tried to blame me because I was ‘sticking out’ 👿

I think if the road is too narrow to allow traffic through with cars parked correctly on both sides then one side of the street should be car-free.

Dunno what GAS means

give a shit

I think if the road is too narrow to allow traffic through with cars parked correctly on both sides then one side of the street should be car-free.

my mum and dad’s street is pretty narrow, the opposite side houses are mainly semis with drives and garages so my parents side all parked on the road but now the semi side now presumably with too many cars or just cba using their drive/garage all park on the pavement 😕

remind me again why society is obliged to provide free storage space for people’s unused poessessions

There’s a road in Stafford, Tixall Rd. where the council have decided to make the on-street parking and the cycle lane share the same bit of red tarmac. And there’s a big factory on that road with big lorries going in and out, and the same factory operates a popular cycle to work scheme and has a full bike shed.

But the crematorium is only a mile up the road, as is the A&E department, so that will save a bit of time.

The planning authorities can and do stipulate how many parking place each house must. On our estate 15 years ago that was 2 offroad parking spaces per house. However one of those could be the garage. In reality no one uses their garage, they are about 4ft too narrow for comfortably parking a family car and openning a door. The bigger issue is many houses have long drives capable of at least 4 cars in a line. However most people park one on the drive and the rest on the pavement to avoid having to shuffle cars. We deliberately bought a corner plot so we had plenty of off road parking. Annoyingly we also have a very drive, 1.5 times the width of a normal car, unfortunately we share it with next door so parking on it would also block them. We’re lucky on our cul de sac that most do use their drives, some have out to widen them (although environmentally driven legislation frowns on that). We have a few who see the turning circles as their own private additional spaces which is a annoying.

The rest of the estate is a nightmare with cars everywhere. It will only be resolved when planners take it seriously, council spend money on creating off street parking (government spending money on infrastructure, no chance) and the enforcement authorities care. So no, the people who can make a difference don’t GAS, especially when we social issues like Rotherham need resources to investigate (not that anything will change). Or all the infrastructure money will go into replacing every single school in Burnley with brand new buildings whilst the children in the next borough make do with victorian institutions. That said I don’t think parking was a big consideration when the new schools were built and educational standards haven’t improved much, same pupils, same teachers but I’m sure it was all a roaring success.

Why should the council spend money creating off street parking? Private possessions should be stored on private land.

Does my head in round here.

Dropped kerbs have no legal standing about whether you can drive over them or not btw

Why should public money be spent on parks, landscaping, trail centres, memorial gardens, street furniture. Because they enhance the shared environment for everyone and is not private money can necessarily do as it takes forward thinking councils to adapt victoruan housing estates to modern living expectations. Even if every new house built from today was done correctly much of the housing stock doesn’t have space for additional parking. Those that do I would expect the homeowner to pay but even then you now need permission to pave your front garden.

This PDF seems to sum up the various laws on pavement parking.

http://politics.leics.gov.uk/documents/s73029/Footway%20Parking.pdf

Can I also add that quite often parking on the pavement, especially when slabs or asp are used, can often trash it. Cracked slabs and so on . Pavements are often not built to withstand cars and it costs councils a lot of money to repair them.

It’s often also said that the parking system is the ‘wrong way’ round too. Areas where you can park should be marked, and areas you can’t park have nothing. Bright yellow lines and all the signage to restrict parking is aesthetically not the nicest thing to look at, can block pavements and can spoil how a place looks.

Cars have enough (too much in my view) space and to then have cars park on pavements and signs etc impact on peds outside of their zone (I.e the road) is not good !

I’ve noticed more and more pavement parking, plus the much more dangerous, and illegal (as I understand it) practice of parking right on the corners of road and street junctions, obscuring the view of oncoming vehicles when pulling out.
As far as dropped kerbs are concerned, I read that it was to prevent damage to the kerbstones by vehicles bumping over them. Frankly, I fail to see how a family saloon could cause damage to concrete kerbstones, but there you go.
I drive over the path to park on my (former) front garden, but the difference in height between the actual road surface and the top of the kerbstones outside my house is approximately an inch, so it’s already dropped, to all intents and purposes!

gwaelod – Member

remind me again why society is obliged to provide free storage space for people’s unused possessions

nicely put

some interesting viewpoints and costings in this (very) US article

http://daily.sightline.org/2013/08/28/parking-karma/

personally I first came across the problem of pavement parking when as a teen my Dad was in a wheelchair and that was a long time ago

Why should public money be spent on parks, landscaping, trail centres, memorial gardens, street furniture.

not quite that straight forward is it? The stuff you mentioned has a lot of positives whereas giving every house multiple parking spaces (and parking at work) making car commuting easier (whilst it already vastly outnumbers all the other options – london excepted) is arguably not good for society and actually has a negative impact in some (most?) ways. Also, increasing acreage of tarmac has other negatives besides encouraging car use.

and from antigee’s link and other stuff I’ve read, the bill for providing so much free parking is pretty mind boggling.

Interesting document IRC.

So the conclusions seem to be it’s against a number of laws but we’ll very rarely if ever do anything about it, bar educate drivers (and that sounds like a proactive council\Police force compared to mine, even when specific complaints have been made about genuine and persistent obstructions).

So OP yes some people (those often affected) GAS but those that can do something about clearly don’t GAS, or at least it’s at the bottom of a list which will never be got to and dealt with.

I believe that it is illegal to drive on the pavement unless it is to access a property. So yes pavement parking is illegal. I think a lot of authorities ignore because once a lawyer gets into court they could say that the vehicle was ‘lifted’ on to the pavement and not driven, therefore not illegal. Don’t you just love UK law and it’s loopholes 🙄
We have a local busy body who goes on social media to rant about newspapers boys & girls (kids) cycling on the pavements and got a woody for the local Police tackling it. However goes on an anti cycling rant when I pointed out about the number of cars parked on the pavements, far out weigh the number of cyclists on the pavements.
I firmly believe that the Authorities don’t want to fine motorists for fear of losing votes. Personally I would like to see a zero tolerance clampdown, which would make the roads safer for all, as at the moment there doesn’t appear to be any rules. 😥

Interesting document IRC

oops missed that first time around. Yeah, I think your conclusions are right, what a depressing document.

From this, it can be inferred that a driver who places two wheels on the footway with the intention of allowing sufficient room for the free movement of traffic on the road cannot necessarily be said to be acting ‘unreasonably’

I though the reasonable course of action in that scenario was to go find somewhere else to park rather than stick it on the pavement.

Wonder if a spate of flash mob parking on pavements outside town halls (or councillor’s houses) may get someone to care…

Some people even forget to fold their wing mirrors in on the pavement side but as I’m a helpful chap I do it for them as I squeeze past.

Just key them as you squeeze past.

Relate ish. I live on a terrace of five houses, each 5m wide. 5 houses, five spaces. I don’t think my neighbours even realise you can fill all five spaces with two Audi a3s. Inconsiderate wotsits. How is it hard to stack cars with less than 2m between them?

As tempted as I am two wrongs really don’t make it right.

One of the worst cars for causing a genuine obstruction on my nursery run route regularly has his wing mirror flipped the wrong way or popped off. Still parks there every! single! day!

I so wish I had some Rad skillz and cold just ride over the roofs 😈

Perhaps without my 2 year old in the trailer though 😉

Some streets in south wales valleys have 2/3 of road full of parked cars, 1/3 actual road people can drive/cycle along. This is in some of the unhealthiest communities in Europe. This isnt pavement parking..obviously, but it shows how in just 40/50 years or so we’ve completely changed our urban landscape to enable lazy people to be a bit lazier.

i always found that if cars were parked on the pavement it was difficult to get the pram past without scratching them.

Hmmm I’ve found that too eddie11. I experience this most days on the school run (which I walk with our 2 boys). When the youngest was in a pushchair I accidentally knocked in wing mirrors or scraped the cars, there’s no way I would walk on the road when I could damage cars and stick to the path. Although I believe parking on the pavement is not an offence as long as it isn’t restricting its use, the road I use is about 4 cars width wide, plenty of space for cars to park both sides and still allow free flowing traffic. I think some people automatically think they need to put 2 wheels on the footpath to be properly parked.

We’re allowed to walk over cars parked on the pavement, right?

…and since a blind eye seems to be turned to riding bikes on the footpath these days, we’re allowed to ride over them too.

I believe that for most urban areas, the centre of the road should be for car parking. To me this seems safer than having parked cars at the pavement obscuring the view.

Can’t be that difficult to park in the middle of the road if suitably marked.

Realistically, too much car use, something that even Jeremy clarkson alluded to in his top gear feature on bikes.

This topic is deserving of a national debate as regards how we get around.

Apologies for the hijack, but within cities at least it would be more efficient to designate road use according to vehicle size, cos let’s face it, lorries and cyclists don’t mix, thus;

Green lane: bikes, vehicles for the disabled, skateboards

Blue lane: light/ efficient cars, motorbikes, taxis

Red lane: buses, lorries, Chelsea tractors

And a mandatory 15 mph limit …

I think some people automatically think they need to put 2 wheels on the footpath to be properly parked.

I’ve noticed this. My OH’s parents live on quite a narrow close where everyone parks with two wheels on the pavement. There isn’t much traffic (motor or pedestrian) going along it, only people who live there or are visiting people who do, and the pavement is wide enough to still leave room.

We usually park on our drive at home, but recently we had a skip on the drive and parked on the road (incidentally I’m still trying to work out the logic behind having to pay for a permit to put a skip on the road when you can park on the road for free – my car is a similar size to a skip and given that we both cycle to work, it doesn’t move much more often either). My OH instinctively put two wheels on the pavement before I asked him what he was doing – the road is more than wide enough for cars to pass each other even with cars parked on each side. I guess it’s just what he’s used to and he doesn’t think any more.

I’m still trying to work out the logic behind having to pay for a permit to put a skip on the road when you can park on the road for free

Well cars can be moved much more easily than skips.

Apologies for the hijack, but within cities at least it would be more efficient to designate road use according to vehicle size

Nah, that’s segregation. Bad idea.

If you own more cars than you have parking spaces, you are common. Fact.

@molgrips

What’s wrong with segregating traffic according to size?

IMHO, the main reason people don’t cycle on roads is perceived safety…until you can demonstrate otherwise we will have as much luck prising people out of their 4x4s than shifting drunks at closing time.

Segregation is exactly what we should be aiming for.

Nah, that’s segregation. Bad idea.

I used to think that, not any more. Segregation in cities, safe areas for bikes, gimp car use, promote more bike usage, make cycling and public transport way more practical, useable and convenient than cars and as cycling becomes more normalised out of town should get better too.

A bit of paint on the road sure as shit isn’t working around here.