Dropped kerbs!

[simoncc]

I had problems with neighbours in terraced houses blocking my driveway so I sometimes couldn't get out. I solved the problem by parking in front of their houses for weeks on end. They told me that this was an outrage, that I was taking 'their place' and that I was being inconsiderate for parking on the road when I had a drive!

The best way to solve problems like this is to tax or ban on-road parking. People with no off-road parking at home should be dissuaded from owning cars. Incredibly many councils encourge car ownership among those with no drives by providing reserved on-road parking for them at a negligible cost - these same councils often try to persuade people out of cars and onto public transport or bikes. Providing reserved on-road parking is hardly going to make people more inclined to do without a car is it?

 

[domd1979]

Incredibly many councils encourge car ownership among those with no drives by providing reserved on-road parking for them at a negligible cost - these same councils often try to persuade people out of cars and onto public transport or bikes. Providing reserved on-road parking is hardly going to make people more inclined to do without a car is it?

Do you mean residents permits? If so then the maximum number of permits on issue and per household is often limited, in which case that does provide a disincentive to ownership.

 

[ufkacbln]

but some of the PCSOs and the like around here would be only to glad to issues a ticket at night, they don't do anything else

This is back to the AA numpty - people use pavements at night. Parking on them or blocking access points is still an offence. If the offence is committed at night then issuing a ticket at night is as acceptable as at any other time.

 

[purplepolly]

On a nearby busy through road there's a narrow stretch of badly lit pavement where residents usually park partly on the pavement. Normally there's enough room to squeeze through but one night (9pm and after sunset) it was completely blocked and I had to detour on the road. There was no obvious gap in the oncoming traffic so I had to take my chance. One of the moron drivers hooted at me for being in the road. This is probably the time of night that the AA is whinging about.

 

[BentMikey]

I had a problem with a neighbour who persistently trapped my car in the drive by parking across our gates. When asked to move the car so we could go out he would eventually, always a few minutes wait for him, move it and put it back as soon as we were out of the street.

I finally solved it the day we came in to find him in his usual place. I parked a couple of millimetres from his back bumper and then went in to the house for the keys to my wife's new car, parked around the back. With that millimetres from his front bumper I waited.

Sure enough later that day there was a knock at the door, he wanted to be out to go to work and couldnt move his car, didn't know who owned our second car so had to ask me to move mine. I told him I'd be right out and promptly did nothing, twenty minutes later he was back and again I told hom I'd be right out.

Ten more minutes later he was really losing it. THAT'S when I told him I'd added up all the times we had waited for him and he had another fifteen hours or so to wait before I'd move either car. He was so angry I thought he'd have a heart attack on the front step! So I offered him a compromise. I'd move one of our cars now so he could go to work AND he'd never park across my gates again. Funnily enough he took it and kept his side of te bargain for the rest of the time we owned that house.

Revenge is a dish best best served cold and all that! I still, thirty years later, smile at the sheer fury he felt that day.

Oooh you beauty!! That is a cool story!

 

[BentMikey]

Are people stupid or just plain selfish? Dropped kerbs are for people in wheelchairs, with pushchairs or mobility problems, what are they supposed to do?

I think they are plain selfish for parking there, and then some of those are stupid for complaining about being ticketed for it.

 

[Bollo]

I think they are plain selfish for parking there, and then some of those are stupid for complaining about being ticketed for it.

Selfish car drivers? Nooooooooo!

On my first school drop off of the year and the usual suspects were out in force. Pavement parking forcing kids to walk on the road, dropped kerbs blocked, driving into the school despite requests not to.

Towards the end of last year they had the parking wardens out in force. One parent had parked their 4x4 up a pavement, blocking it completely. The warden signalled for him to move, so he did - by driving along the pavement at the warden! Not fast, but enough so that the warden had to step out of the way. I offered to act as a witness but the warden was surprisingly chilled about it.

 

[simoncc]

Do you mean residents permits? If so then the maximum number of permits on issue and per household is often limited, in which case that does provide a disincentive to ownership.

Allowing a household two guaranteed on road parking spaces at the ludicrously low cost of £30 per year certainly is an incentive to car ownership compared to offering them no guaranteed on road parking spaces which was the situation before the resident's parking scheme was introduced by the same council that tells us we should use public transport more.

Providing on-road parking spaces for anyone under any circumstances is an incentive to car ownership, and shows that most councils have no real transport policy but just a liking for anything which produces revenue and needs administrating.

 

[domd1979]

Allowing a household two guaranteed on road parking spaces at the ludicrously low cost of £30 per year certainly is an incentive to car ownership compared to offering them no guaranteed on road parking spaces which was the situation before the resident's parking scheme was introduced by the same council that tells us we should use public transport more.

I'd be surprised if the majority of streets where residents permit operated had space for two cars per household. Many schemes work on issuing 20% more permits than there are spaces, since all the cars in a street are rarely there all at the same time, so permit doesn't equate to guaranteed space. Permits can certainly help a more equitable distribution of space. Where I lived previously, on-street parking was necessary for most households, and parking was extremely difficult most evenings. This didn't stop the house opposite having 5 cars.

Residents permit schemes often aren't about the car use/ownership of the residents in that street. Take a railway station, with lots of residential roads around - commuters all turn up and don't want to pay for parking at the station (or there isn't any) and abandon their motors in the surrounding streets (annoying, but technically legal). Introduce a residents permit scheme and that knocks the commuters' parking behaviour on the head. Either they have to pay to park or get to the station some other way. So the scheme is a disincentive to car use for this group. Same applies for residential streets near town centres.

Providing on-road parking spaces for anyone under any circumstances is an incentive to car ownership, and shows that most councils have no real transport policy but just a liking for anything which produces revenue and needs administrating.

So you advocate no on street parking for anyone. How would that be enforced? Yellow lines? Who polices them? Local council. Wouldn't that be just a "revenue producing" exercise....?

I wouldn't say residents permit schemes make a profit given the cost of an attendant to patrol any permit areas.

 

[Tony]

He doesn't live in a terraced house like the great unwashed.....

 

[snorri]

Our attitudes with regard to usage of our streets defy any logic. It is generally accepted that people will obstruct the road in front of their home with a parked car, but if a householder with no car decided to set out some pot plants or cordon off an area for child play equipment for a few days, or even worse erected a temporary cycle store, I imagine there would be all sorts of public outcry.

 

[summerdays]

Our attitudes with regard to usage of our streets defy any logic. It is generally accepted that people will obstruct the road in front of their home with a parked car, but if a householder with no car decided to set out some pot plants or cordon off an area for child play equipment for a few days, or even worse erected a temporary cycle store, I imagine there would be all sorts of public outcry.

Interesting point - I'd never looked at it that way... though it does bug me when people with drives leave cars on the road cos the can't be bothered to put them off the road.

 

[Amanda P]

Clicky.

A couple of years ago I remember reading a blog about people doing this regularly as a sort of demonstration against car culture. Their point was that once you've put your money in the meter, the parking space is rented for the time to do with as you will. They put down turf, brought in trees, set up benches... Ineveitably, this was in California.

Maybe we should do this in some UK cities.

 

[dellzeqq]

Our attitudes with regard to usage of our streets defy any logic. It is generally accepted that people will obstruct the road in front of their home with a parked car, but if a householder with no car decided to set out some pot plants or cordon off an area for child play equipment for a few days, or even worse erected a temporary cycle store, I imagine there would be all sorts of public outcry.

Very interesting point. I'm reminded of a case where enforcement action was taken against a householder in Kingston-upon-Thames (a Borough with pretensions to green-ness) for putting a bike locker in his front garden.

 

[dellzeqq]

Clicky.

A couple of years ago I remember reading a blog about people doing this regularly as a sort of demonstration against car culture. Their point was that once you've put your money in the meter, the parking space is rented for the time to do with as you will. They put down turf, brought in trees, set up benches... Ineveitably, this was in California.

Maybe we should do this in some UK cities.

It's happened in the UK, and I can't recall where....