After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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There's a sandwich shop around the corner from me, every day without fail there are a long procession of vehicles, usually vans and trucks, which park half on the pavement, on double yellow lines. pedestrians struggle to pass on the remainder of the pavement, and those with buggies must walk around the vehicles into the road to pass.
I just watched this - and people complain about escooters in the pavement !
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-leicestershire-59894959
Come on BP! You, of all people, should know that if they can't be bothered to do anything about this Passat VO53 BLK crossing the double white lines, with a different plate on the trailer from that on the car, carrying sheep (probably), with a child in the front seat not wearing a seat-belt (probably) and travelling on a public road without road-tax, then they're going to choose tea and doughnuts at the station over bothering with trivia like double yellow lines, blocked pavements etc
Related point: there was a pavement parking consultation in 2020, and we're still waiting for the results/change in policy.
Anyone know when we can expect to hear something?
It's been temporarily left on a footway for a sec while the government are "just popping in" to the free market.
I hope they have left their BOLAS on...
It will arrive shortly after the consultation on the review of road laws, from seven years ago. Don't hold your breath, and anyway, you peds are not only a minority, you obstruct drivers!
Not sure, but I know Scotgov have just launched a consultation on this subject. Just don't ask why I know, because I can't remember!
They only 'cracked down' after a complaint was made, then seemed to find several examples of bad parking. Why hadn't these vehicles been ticketed anyway, already? They say 'expect a ticket' but I doubt very much if that's true, as staff shortages will mean their attention is diverted elsewhere before long.
Op Park-Safe was one the WMP RHRT used to run as well as the close pass, catching mobile phone use from buses and speed cameras. There used to be alot of success for them all and plenty of support on twitter (apart from the odd "Catch real criminals" or "donut eating wasters in front of a keyboard" type comments). So WMP decided to get rid of the team.
The amount of drivers who believe double yellows do not count if they go halfway onto the pavement is staggering. The trouble is most of the time the police ignore it and only councils get involved.
Police / Councils should also be able to enforce parking offences via camera. This crossing regularly has people parking on the zigzags, sometimes two before the it leading back to the island. A camera on one of the poles facing it would soon stop it from happening.
I thought it was only allowed if you deployed your BOLAS?
Although round my neck of the city I think you're OK if you don't touch or straddle the yellows as it's very common to have cars completely on the footway if wide enough.
WOOHOOO!
Presumably the reason why people can get parking tickets but not get done for driving on the pavement is (apart from the bizarre "crane defence" leading to the need for video) that this has: a) effectively been decriminalised b) but e.g. councils are allowed to declare their own "administrative punishments" per by-laws? Is that it?
(With trepidation; I can sense a well-known and recently discussed lawyer looming...)
But how else would the drivers just pop into Gregg's?
Use it as a drive through?🤣
Just good!