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news
Cycle lane parked car (Image credit: Rob Ainsley sent to us)French cyclists launch competition to find worst-parked cars in their city
Go for a spin around any built-up area and you will likely find at least one badly-parked car left blocking a cycle lane or pavement.
One group of French cyclists are taking matters into their own hands to raise awareness of the problem — launching a competition to find their city's worst-parked vehicle.
The tongue-in-cheek 'garé comme une merde' roughly translates to the 'parked like crap' award, and was founded by Lyon cycling association La Ville à Vélo Lyon Métropole.
The Connexion, a French-based English language news site, reports special mention will be given to those who park in cycle lanes, but there will also be various categories for inconsiderate motorists to be entered into.
Vehicles badly parked in front of free dedicated parking spaces, badly parked vehicles that cause queues, badly parked cars in front of shops for 'urgent stops' such as cigarettes or toilet breaks, or even those parked so drivers can have a chat are all up for grabs.
Drivers parking badly in front of police cars or police stations will also be part of a separate category.
The competition will close on Thursday 24 March with submissions welcomed on Twitter using the hashtag #GCUM and tagging @LaVilleaVelo.
There are some early front-runners for the multitude of categories...
Proposition #2: https://t.co/Z1Hzi2EBdn
— La Ville à Vélo Lyon Métropole (@LaVilleaVelo) March 20, 2022
Proposition #3: https://t.co/Cmk7WyiMG4
— La Ville à Vélo Lyon Métropole (@LaVilleaVelo) March 20, 2022
Urgence la poste + cumulard bande et racks vélo ce midi place des pavillons pic.twitter.com/zLA5Obagq4
— Jérôme Foray 💉💉💉 (@meroje01) March 1, 2022
If such a competition was to hypothetically cross the Channel it might be an open-and-shut case of simply giving the Lancaster motorist whose remarkable parking is pictured at the top of this story, and appeared on the road.cc live blog on Friday.
Or perhaps awarding a winner would not be that simple. Last May, the president of the AA said it "doesn't look great" after one of the breakdown company's vans was pictured parked in a cycle lane.
Despite the AA's official Twitter account originally defending the display, saying it looked as thought the mechanic was attending a breakdown at one of the houses, Edmund King OBE stepped in, under the context of a social media firestorm, to admit it was not the best look for the company.
Feel free to fill the comments with your own snaps of badly-parked cars where you live...
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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18 comments
Special award has to go to our local parking enforcement, obstructing the pavement to ticket cars doing the same thing. Classic do as I say, not as I do. Point this out and get a tirade of "we have dispensation".
They were at it again last week, but this time parked on the other side adjacent to the lamp post you can see, to make sure they made the pavement as narrow as possible.
FYI, there is a car park just around the corner.
I'd be interested to know who dispenses the dispensation, and by what powers. I suspect it is no more than a case of "we administer the tickets so you can't ticket us, 'cause it won't be administered".
I actually contacted the council in the instance in the photo and you pretty much nailed their response. Basically - don't care, they didn't block the pavement a wheelchair could get through there. We can park where we like, ner ner nee ner ner.
My enquiry was reasonable. As in, surely it would be better to set an example than just hand out tickets, and if they do have park where there are restrictions avoid parking on pavements. I mean the road here is wide enough they could have just parked on the road.
Thank the likes of Loophole Nick for that.
They used to ticket for simply parking on the pavement but some Mr Loophole argued that obstruction was only obstruction if you physically couldn't pass. Tell that to a blind person.
And? Since when has a wheelchair width been the gold standard? What about a mobility scooter, or a double buggy?
One little point... the double yellow line offence would be dealt with by the council's Civil Enforcement team - however, obstructing the pavement is generally a criminal offence, dealt with by the police (I think councils can apply for decriminalisation of certain offences in their area and use civil enforcement, not sure if pavement obstruction is one of these).
Coming back to this. Interestingly they were out again today, different driver but I think his colleague was the same woman I saw last week. They didn't pavement park this time. I'll keep at them when I see them do it.
Not a cycle lane, but still... Grudgingly rolled back a few inches as I approached, so that I only partly had to walk through the bush next to it. Dumb thing is, there's plenty of space there in front of the property they're actually working on where, while they'd still be blocking the pavement, it would at least have left plenty of room to go round on the grass.
one from down under...evening just about to go dark so not about to unload...
and this SUV has a bike rack attachment on the towbar...the adjacent sign is "No Standing" that is no parking or waiting
We should have a similar competition in the UK.
The number of entries would be overwhelming.
A while ago in france, my host was explaining who to avoid when driving. There were lots of poxy little cars with tiny engines driven really badly and parked anywhere. Apparently (and I may have had a drink or two so I may have been gullible) these could be driven by those who had lost their license* or never got their license in the first place and were bought as throw away and/or shared between neighbours.
*blatant trolling
This is true, they're called VSP (voiture sans permis), can be driven from age 14.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadricycle_(EU_vehicle_classification)
Interesting. My host was offering me theirs to get back from the pub and was non-plussed that I wasn't good with driving anything when pissed, even a minuscule shit-mobile.
There's a bloke commutes into Bristol in one of those Renault Twizys. Painted all in matt black, with a yellow batsymbol on the back. Classy.
The French have always been lousy car parkers, so they're going to win this competition hands down.
https://yplac.co.uk/gallery/
I think we can hold our own
Here are a couple of Rosbif drivers in sunny Shrewsbury today showing the Frogs how it should be done.
https://twitter.com/plotfolk/status/1506192059337695232/
Spotted by a Shrewsbury resident mid-morning, I had ridden over that precise part of the shared path earlier. I'll be sure to have my house key ready next time... *
Last month he posted one of a Range Rover (with no MOT, expired August 2021) a a few streets away:
https://twitter.com/plotfolk/status/1495092907040251912
* that's a joke, of course.