I think it already is. It just doesn’t get enforced.
I think it is illegal to completely obstruct a pavement to the point that wheelchairs, pushchairs etc can’t get past.
But parking your car and leaving a bit of a gap is apparently fine.
When I had driving lessons, it was taught that most people think that’s the rule, and in real life it practically is the rule, but it’s on the books as illegal to put your car on the pavement at all, and you’ll be penalised for it during the parking parts of a driving test.
I think the specific offence is driving on the pavement, which parking obviously requires, but I could be wrong.
I know you’re not allowed to put an HGV on the pavement, but I thought everything else was ok.
We have the same issue in Germany. :( Car drivers just get away with absolutely everything unfortunately.
It’s not the rule.
So what happens is this, someone says you’re allowed to park on the pavement as long as you don’t obstruct the road, then someone else says no and quotes the highway code. Then you point out that the only thing you’re not allowed to do is park on the payment in London, and elsewhere you should basically not do it if you can avoid it.
No one is going to get arrested for parking partially on the pavement outside of London unless you’ve been a complete dick about it, or if it’s unnecessary. For where it’s necessary as long as there’s no other parking restrictions then you should be fine as long as pedestrians can get past.
The highway code is fine in principle, but the people who wrote it have never been further north than Bedford.
Said councils need to provide adequate parking, and ensure that future developments have such.
Why do city governments need to provide free/subsidized storage for private vehicles in public spaces, now?
It is not financially nor geometrically sustainable. It is a wealth transfer from the poorer to the richer. People who want cars can store them on their own property.
Private vehicles are owned by members of the public. The public pay taxes.
It not being “geometrically sustainable” is the result of poor planning - which the city council is responsible for.
Everything is owned by members of the public. That is not a clever argument.
There’s no reason to be subsidizing this. It is not necessary nor helpful for the health of the city.
Not being geometrically sustainable means that a city with good planning doesn’t lean into it. It’s not the “result of poor planning”. You can’t change the laws of geometry with planning. Cars are an inefficient and ineffective transportation plan outside of the countryside and cities should only support them the bare minimum necessary while encouraging other forms as primary - subsidizing them by providing free/mandatory parking is leaps and bounds beyond the bare minimum and can quickly put to death sustainable urban growth.
When in the midst of a housing crisis we should not be devoting city resources to these intensely inefficient, regressive uses.
So you want the city to freely give public space for your private vehicle?
Councils need to provide public transport, and support walking and cycling
Sure, and the government needs to regulate the public transport industry such that they stop structuring their businesses so they can squirrel their profits away using Hollywood-style accounting. But, failing that, councils need to plan cities appropriately.
Even London, which has decent public transport, has decent space for parking.
If that were true, the text could read “ You MUST NOT park partially or wholly on the pavement unless signs permit it. “
Do you have something to back that up? It seems very odd that London would be named specially as must not then a second clause for the remainder of the country that sounds different. Surely it should either be “you must not park on the pavement” or if there’s some archaic reason that London needs specific wording "you must not park on the pavement in London, and you must not park on the pavement elsewhere "
The law is NOT there for “should” statements in the Highway Code. “Shoulds” are considered best practice, and can work against you in a careless/dangerous driving case if you didn’t follow them, but they are not themselves tied to any specific legislation. “Must” statements ARE backed up by legislation, and so can be enforced.
The highway code is not law.
Nope : rules in the Code which are legal requirements, and which you will be committing a criminal offense if you disobey, use the words “must/must not.” Violating other parts of the Code, which use the words “should/should not” or “do/do not”, can be used as evidence against you in Traffic Court, even if violating them is not an automatic criminal offense
Sounds great in principle, but where are me and the other 60 houses down our terraced street with no off-street parking supposed to park our cars?
Yes, I’d love to live in the public transport utopia that’s just over the horizon, but right now, I need a car to get to and from work and I live in a house that was literally built before cars were a thing.
Again, I can only speak to our street but the vast majority of car owners make sure there’s ample room to get through. The issue is that there’s usually one or two assholes who ruin it for everyone, and those guys usually find out pretty quickly why it’s a bad idea to block the path.
For context: I drive, but I’ve also had two kids and therefore two pushchairs I’ve had to navigate along the pavement. My car also got totalled a few years ago by a delivery driver who drove into it whilst it was parked. Id rather it not be parked on the road/pavement but what choice do we have here?
It’s your problem to find somewhere to park. Maybe on another nearby street. Or buy/rent a dwelling with parking provided.
“That’s your problem” is a terrible way to get people to support policy. These are real, valid concerns that many people simply can’t deal with without other systems in place that currently don’t exist.
This type of “fuck any gradual change, revolution now” is just armchair anarchy pushed by kids who don’t face financial pressure.
British streets were never built for the amount of cars we have today. I can see why parking half on/off is needed.
I live in a new estate where homes either have two spaces on their driveway or a parking space. People still park fully on the path. To the point if you was in a wheelchair you couldn’t get by. People also don’t use their allocated parking space and park outside their house on the footpath.
Oh totally. I don’t have a car because I don’t have anywhere to park it, and can’t justify owning a personal vehicle when (bad) public transport and cycle paths are available.
Because of this I find people who expect public space to be given to them, to the detriment of other people, to be selfish.
Basically true for Bristol too. Barely any rail network (despite having two main stations), a terrible bus system under a monopoly, and often no choice but to drive if you want to keep your job.
We’ve also got some very tight roads, and terraced housing that isn’t really fit for purpose any more, especially outside of the main city.
Basically any city or town or village that was built before the invention of the car, and in the UK that’s basically everywhere. The house I live in was built before plumbing. God damn the road is narrow.
If we didn’t park on the curb no one would be able to get past. The other day an ambulance came up here, and it was a squeeze but it was fine so I don’t think it’s actually a problem.
