My name is Helen Nugent and I am a pavement parker. This is not a hobby or something I set out to do on a daily basis but, in many instances, it’s that or block the road to traffic and put cyclists’ lives at risk.
Britain’s roads weren’t built for this many vehicles. There are more than 25 million cars on UK roads, and that’s the licensed ones. Cities, towns and villages struggle to cope with available parking spaces. I can think of multiple places in my immediate vicinity where traffic is limited to single file because of vehicles parked on either side. And that’s often where people park on the pavement to ease congestion.
Whether this is due to a growing population, more women in work or the ever-increasing desire to own a car (and let’s not forget that a large number of families own a minimum of two), the bottom line is that Britain is a nation of car drivers. Last month alone, 562,337 new cars were registered, up 8.4 per cent on March last year, according to The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
In London boroughs, parking on the pavement is prohibited and has been for as long as I’ve been alive. The law states: ‘You must not park partially or wholly on the pavement in London. Parking on the pavement can obstruct and seriously inconvenience pedestrians, people in wheelchairs or with visual impairments and people with prams or pushchairs.’
However, in the rest of the country the law is much more opaque. As a general rule of thumb, it down to local signs to indicate that pavement parking will cause an obstruction. Otherwise, parking on the pavement is allowed, although not where there are single or double yellow lines. As in the capital, driving on the pavement is illegal.
Now the Department for Transport is ‘examining pavement parking outside London’ as part of its cycling and walking investment strategy, urged on by the Local Government Association which says that ‘it’s a nonsense that those outside London do not have more control to stop pavement parking’. This could mean fines for drivers across the UK.
New research from Co-op Insurance suggests that two fifths of drivers currently parking on pavements could be fined up to £1.2 billion if new rules to ban pavement parking are agreed by the government. It says that 17 million UK drivers park on pavements and three quarters of drivers agree that parking fully or partly on pavements is the best approach in certain locations to avoid obstructing traffic.
James Hillon, director of products for Co-op Insurance said: ‘It’s no surprise that drivers are finding it more and more difficult to park with an increase in the number of cars on the roads, new housing estates and residents frequently dependent on street parking. However, it’s really important that drivers consider the impact their parking can have on communities, as well as the potential cost to them if these proposed fines are agreed.’
I am sympathetic to calls from the Guide Dogs charity and the Royal National Institute of Blind People who argue that pavement parking poses a real danger to those people with sight loss, and I’m aware that wheelchair users and parents with prams find it frustrating.
I know how irritating it is to squeeze past a car on a pavement or be forced to walk on the road. But aside from a root-and-branch redesign of the nation’s roads, I don’t see what choice we pavement parkers have, particularly when it comes to picking up children from school or preventing damage to stationary vehicles.
Helen Nugent is Online Money Editor of The Spectator
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