AIBU To expect cars to park on the road?

Cherry you must live near me! More cars on the pavements than on the road!

Happens round here too I had to stand and wait while a neighbour reversed along the pavement yesterday then walk onto the road and round his car

Read somewhere that is illegal in some counties and not others.
There used to be an old lady around here ( dead now ) that used to bend the cars windscreen wipers if they were parked on the pavement!

It happens here too when people are visiting the pub. Just a thought ........ if we rattled the car/tried to open the doors etc would the car alarm go off ? I have so wanted to push past with the pushchair and leave a big scratch down the side but so far have not had the courage but setting the car alarm off ...............................!!

I wish it was illegal- it is very selfish and thoughtless.

Many years ago I had a blind colleague who used to charge about town using a long cane for his mobility.
He was always encountering cars on pavements Apart from the language used he used to give them a whack with his cane and threaten to climb over any car in his way. I don't know if he did. It would not surprise me, he got up to all sorts.
Some colleagues once took him for a drive on an empty road somewhere with them being his eyes and helping him steer.

I always thought it was illegal,we have a Road near to us where parking on the pavement seems to be the norm and you have to walk into the Road to pass,the owners of the houses complain that with the Road being so narrow they have to park that way.

Yes, it's dreadful to negotiate narrow pavements with buggies, wheelchairs of if you are blind. A friend who is a guide dog puppy carer photographs cars parked on the pavement and leaves notes for the drivers.

The difficulty of course, is that in so many areas, the roads aren't wide enough to allow parking either side. I parked outside a shop locally and came out to find my wing mirror on the road (again). I try and avoid parking half on the pavement because it's wrong to block them. I'm lucky, at home we have a driveway so our cars don't get damaged and we don't block the road. Totally different 50 yards down where it's all terraced houses.

I know someone who likes to leave notes on cars which are badly parked. The note she leaves on those parked on the pavement outside her house says "Sorry I scratched your car trying to get by" On occasion she has seen the owners come back and watched as they spent several minutes trying to find the non-existent scratch.

Indeed nellie - it is very dangerous for blind people.

I have had words with people that I've seen doing this. One woman in particular who parked right on the pavement where there are double yellows, on a busy main road. I tapped on her window and asked her if she thought it was acceptable for someone with a pushchair, for example, to have to walk in the road because her car was on the pavement. I pointed out the distances between the available dropped kerbs either side of her car, forcing a wheelchair user to travel quite a distance in the road just to get past her.
She was 'just waiting for her daughter to come out of school' (oh that's all right then ). I asked her why couldn't she park around the corner in a side road - she was about 2 metres from this road - and the reason? Because it's residents parking only there

We have some stretches of very wide pavement round here which drivers virtually block off by parking with all four wheels on the pavement. This is particularly annoying just round the corner from me, where it's common to find a car parked this way at a bus stop! Seeing as it's our local authority that is responsible for enforcing parking regulations, I rang them (after having emails ignored) to be told that parking on the pavement is legal, apart from in London. What is illegal is driving on the pavement, so unless (!) it can be proved that they have driven on the pavement to get there, everything's fine and dandy. Apparently the driver doesn't have to prove that they didn't drive on the pavement - good job, really, isn't it? .

I tried talking to someone parked across most of the pavement. His reply was "It's only five fucking minutes" So it's OK if we stand in the road chatting and hold up the traffic for five fucking minuites then?

I now photograph them with my phone - ostentatiously, so that they see me doing it.

If there were two of me, I would stand in front of and behind the car so that the driver couldn't drive it off for as long as it had been blocking the pavement for pedestrians - taking care to stand legally on the pavement, of course. They might be surprised at how long they had to wait.

Pavement parking makes me really rant! There used to be a group called "Pavements are for Pedestrians" which provided stickers which could be posted on cars telling them that they were obstructing but I couldn't find any when Googling. However years ago when childminding, often walking with a double buggy and three children walking, got pretty angry at being forced to walk into busy roads. So yes, I used to post these stickers on cars. But worse were the cars who used to mount the pavement behind me when I was walking with all these children, still driving, so that they could avoid the queues of cars! So very dangerous and I had to knock on a few windscreens to tell them to desist. Not that they did of course.

More recently I had to walk into the path of busy traffic even when I was struggling with crutches, due to selfish parking like this, even when there was plenty of space on the other side of the road for them to park.

This is what the police say (www.askthe police.uk):

"Local authorities (in England) can make an order prohibiting parking on the pavement. If this is the case, then there will be signs which clearly point out on a particular road where parking on the pavement is specifically prohibited. The penalty for contravening this will be a fixed penalty notice.

Otherwise, 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 vehicles. It can also cause danger/nuisance for pedestrians and wheelchairs users.

Note that it is an offence to drive on the pavement, yet despite the obvious inference that a parked vehicle has been driven on the pavement prior to being parked there, witnesses to the driving will probably be needed to secure a prosecution - this can be problematic."

So it is legal to park on a pavement. I didnt know that.
In which case pavements do not belong to pedestrians only as the law stands.

I agree with Leticia.

Is it practical for the law to be changed?

They've started ticketing people round here who park on the pavements. Signs went up and were initially successful, then the pavement parkers drifted back and the wardens have pounced

I live in a mews and all of the front gardens are open plan and we are not allowed to change it- more's the pity or I would have a 7 foot high electrified fence around mine! People have ruined my lawn and kerb by parking 2 wheels on my grass. They live in another road and have nowhere to park- I would not buy or rent without having at least one parking space.

Just remembered that my next door neighbour did walk over a car that was parked on the pavement, when the driver refused to move it! My neighbour got in trouble with the police but the driver wasn't penalised!

Charleygirl, try sprinkling some nails across the piece of grass where they park, once they've had a puncture or two they might think twice!

This does SO annoy me. In our cul de sac they park on both sides of the road and have no thought of access for emergency vehicles. On one occasion the binmen just went away because they were unable to get up the road between this selfish paring. A note was sent to residents so then they started (and still do) parking half on pavement and half on road. Mind you, the firemen have said that if there was an emergency they would just barge through and if there was any damage to the parked vehicles, then they would not be liable as responding to a life threatening incident ! All the houses have garages and two cars but some do park one car on their driveways and the other on the road. We have two cars - one IN THE GARAGE and one on the drive. I think that if they have garages and do not use them, they should pay to park on the road.

Parking around here is the bane of my life, not only the " half on half off", but the houses where garages are not used for the cars, but as extra storage space. One of the houses now has 4 cars and a camper van, as well as the occasional van they use for work. None of the cars are garaged, it is too full of stuff, so usually two cars are parked on the road. None of the cars are garaged. Folk who drive across the pavement, to park in their front gardens, have been told that driving across the pavements will damage buried utilities! So, are the half and half'ers also in danger of damaging pipes, cables etc, or is this just another way for local councils to relieve you of your money?. The cost of having a kerb dropped can be approx. £600.00, depending where you live.

I use a mobility scooter and sometimes have to reverse a long way to find a dropped kerb because of cars on the FOOTPATH. The same applies when the bin men leave bins in the middle of the pavement after emptying and the owners don't take them in. Other culprits are those who allow their hedges to grow outwards.

The campaign against pavement parking is here:

www.livingstreets.org.uk/make-a-change/take-action-with-us/pavement-parking

It annoys me every day too, quite apart from the access problems for people using the pavements, I think that repeated pavement parking must eventually damage the utility conduits underneath which will cost us all further down the line. It is so often done because people cannot be bothered to walk a few yards from their vehicles.

Genius!
:-D