People that park their cars on pavements.....

kpwll

I object to people driving and parking on pavements and I've been driving for 20+ years.
I don't live in London or Exeter, in fact I live in a cul-de-sac, we have had official letters from the local police regarding parking on pavements (due to a lot of non-residents using the street as a car park when going shopping, doctors etc, parking works' vans overnight) stating that offenders could be liable to a fixed penalty £30.00 fine. There have been quite a few dished out.
I like to be able to come out of my gate without worrying that I, or my family, grandchildren*, visitors, are going to be hit by a car driving on the pavement. The fact that they also park on the pavement right across the gate entrance to my property adds insult to injury.

*My garden has a hedge and any car being driven on the pavement would have great difficulty seeing children in particular going out of the gate.

frugal_mike

The Department for Transport have made a statement on this. The relevant excerpt being:

There is currently no national legislation banning the parking of all vehicles on the pavement, due to the wide range of circumstances and locations where pavement parking occurs.! For example in some narrow residential roads with a lack of off-street parking provision, drivers have little option but to park on the pavement to avoid causing traffic hazards.! The Government has no plans at present to introduce new legislation specifically aimed at banning pavement parking on a national scale.

The full statement can be found at:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110107092225/http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tpm/tmaportal/tmafeatures/tmapart6/secparkingfactsheets/parkingonpavements

Thanks to the WayBack Machine for helping me find that (but the page is from last year so is not particularly old).

So:

* Parking on pavements is not illegal (at least not in all/most cases)
* The DFT specifically recognises narrow residential streets with no offstreet parking as a legitimate scenario for parking on the pavements.


(Off topic - what's the markup for list items on here?)

earthstorm

frugal_mike wrote: »

The Department for Transport have made a statement on this. The relevant excerpt being:



The full statement can be found at:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110107092225/http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tpm/tmaportal/tmafeatures/tmapart6/secparkingfactsheets/parkingonpavements

Thanks to the WayBack Machine for helping me find that (but the page is from last year so is not particularly old).

So:

* Parking on pavements is not illegal (at least not in all/most cases)
* The DFT specifically recognises narrow residential streets with no offstreet parking as a legitimate scenario for parking on the pavements.


(Off topic - what's the markup for list items on here?)

so this part of the LAW is wrong then

145

You MUST NOT drive on or over a pavement, footpath or bridleway except to gain lawful access to property, or in the case of an emergency.
Laws HA 1835 sect 72 & RTA 1988 sect 34

to park on a FOOTpath a vehicle would first have to DRIVE on the FOOTpath which is against the law

shaun_from_Africa

earthstorm wrote: »

so this part of the LAW is wrong then

It's not that it's wrong, simply that it is something that it's not as straightforward as it first sounds.
Although it's clear that to have parked on the pavement, someone must also have driven on that bit of pavement, it is not actually easy for the police to prove who committed the offence.

"You MUST NOT drive on or over a pavement, footpath or bridleway except to gain lawful access to property, or in the case of an emergency."
Since January 1999 a fixed penalty notice can be issued with the offender given a ticket with fine and points attached unless they appeal in which case it goes to court.
This regulation tends not to be used, especially if a police officer doesn’t see the driver actually driving on to the pavement. A police officer may have "reasonable grounds" to believe the motorist drove on the pavement - it would be up to the courts to decide whether a driver was telling the truth should he claim his car was placed on the pavement with the use of a crane. However, unlike for a speeding offence a police officer has no power, in relation to driving on the pavement, to insist that the keeper of a vehicle tells of who was driving at any particular time. For this and other reasons the police generally don't enforce this particular law and tend to refer complainants to local authority parking enforcement officers, who have few mechanisms in which to tackle the problem.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmtran/writev/parking/m01.htm

Sequeena

This happens on my street a lot. You can still get by most even with a buggy but a few park inches from a wall when there is absolutely no need so we are forced onto the road.

earthstorm

so how do you think the car got on the pavement.

fly
materialised
picked up and dropped

it has to be driven onto the path which is an offence.

this used to be dealt with by traffic wardens issuing tickets but now that duty falls to the local authority parking enforcement officers, which in our county do enforce this by issuing tickets

frugal_mike

earthstorm wrote: »

so this part of the LAW is wrong then



to park on a FOOTpath a vehicle would first have to DRIVE on the FOOTpath which is against the law

You haven't posted the law in any of your posts. The Highway Code is not the law.

As kindly pointed out by Wealdroam, guidelines in the Highway Code that contain
MUST/MUST NOT are derived from actual legislation and make reference to legislation. The section you quoted references two laws (The Highways Act 1835 section 33, and the Road Traffic Act 1988 section 34. As I'm sure you can understand these two sections are much more complicated than the very short statement that appears in the highway code.

That statement cannot and does not define the law in its entirety, and is just intended to keep people acting legally in a brief and simple to understand manner.

From The Road Traffic Act 1988 section 34 subsection 3)

It is not an offence under this section to drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on any land within fifteen yards of a road, being a road on which a motor vehicle may lawfully be driven, for the purpose only of parking the vehicle on that land.

Taken from: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/34

So in summary what you posted is not a law, and it is not an offence to park on a pavement if it is within 15 yards of a road.

System

earthstorm wrote: »

this used to be dealt with by traffic wardens issuing tickets but now that duty falls to the local authority parking enforcement officers, which in our county do enforce this by issuing tickets

They don't.

earthstorm

frugal_mike wrote: »

You haven't posted the law in any of your posts. The Highway Code is not the law.

As kindly pointed out by Wealdroam, guidelines in the Highway Code that contain
MUST/MUST NOT are derived from actual legislation and make reference to legislation. The section you quoted references two laws (The Highways Act 1835 section 33, and the Road Traffic Act 1988 section 34. As I'm sure you can understand these two sections are much more complicated than the very short statement that appears in the highway code.

That statement cannot and does not define the law in its entirety, and is just intended to keep people acting legally in a brief and simple to understand manner.

From The Road Traffic Act 1988 section 34 subsection 3)



Taken from: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/34

So in summary what you posted is not a law, and it is not an offence to park on a pavement if it is within 15 yards of a road.

read

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=63546329&postcount=201 which wealdroam posted

Many of the rules in The Highway Code are LEGAL requirements, and if you disobey these rules you are committing a criminal offence

.

lazer

frugal_mike wrote: »

You haven't posted the law in any of your posts. The Highway Code is not the law.

As kindly pointed out by Wealdroam, guidelines in the Highway Code that contain
MUST/MUST NOT are derived from actual legislation and make reference to legislation. The section you quoted references two laws (The Highways Act 1835 section 33, and the Road Traffic Act 1988 section 34. As I'm sure you can understand these two sections are much more complicated than the very short statement that appears in the highway code.

That statement cannot and does not define the law in its entirety, and is just intended to keep people acting legally in a brief and simple to understand manner.

From The Road Traffic Act 1988 section 34 subsection 3)



Taken from: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/34

So in summary what you posted is not a law, and it is not an offence to park on a pavement if it is within 15 yards of a road.

Thank you - there we have it - outside of London it is not illegal to park on a pavement and even the DFT recognise the need for pavement parking on narrow residential streets, however the high horse brigade on here seem to suggest that everyone should park elsewhere.

It is illegal however to cause an obstruction.

Do you realise that there is not enough parking spaces elsewhere - you could in some cities finish up walking miles from where you park your cark if you don't park on pavements.

Why do we not just allow common sense to prevail - parking on pavements is fine as long as they aren't causing an obstruction - both drivers and pedistrians need to take all reasonable steps to avoid annoying other users of the roads and footpaths.