Most days the pavement on Montrose Close is completely blocked with cars. I used to stop and talk with an old dear walking that way, I don’t see her now. I think she’s given up because she can’t get her shopping trolley through, I don’t know which way she walks now. Frankly there is plenty of room to park on the road in Kings Hedges – there is no need at all for pavement parking.
Can this be addressed please?
Find out morePosted in Issues, Roads and streets
Tags: Montrose Close, parking
Posted on 25 June 2013, by Cab Davidson.
The North area policing team will evaluate the parking situation and take appropriate action. This is not an issue which has been flagged up previously as being problematic. There is no Traffic Regulation Order in force preventing pavement parking. The extent to which pavement parking becomes an unlawful obstruction has to be judged on a case by case basis.
Inspector, this is nonsense.
On a daily basis cars block the pavements there entirely.
Driving on the pavement is illegal. You know that. Why are you choosing not to enforce the law regarding driving on the pavement? Its not only dangerous, it causes damage (paving isn’t always constructed to take this), and in this instance the pavement is, often, entirely blocked.
I’m sorry Inspector, it appears to me that you simply don’t want to enforce the law when it comes to people driving on the pavement. Shameful.
Well, so much for this a community site to get things done. Yet another avenue for the Police to not help us.
My original comment regarding the extent to which pavement parking becomes an unlawful obstruction still stands. Each situation has to be judged on the circumstances which present themselves at the time. In response to the original post the North area policing team have patrolled the area and have spoken to a number of vehicle owners all of whom moved their cars when requested. The team will continue to work with residents to improve the situation, but if a Fixed Penalty Notice needs to be issued then it will be.
Inspector Poppitt, with few exceptions such as going across to a driveway, driving on the pavement is illegal. You know that this is true. You’re choosing to ignore that law – a car being on the pavement anywhere in the city is clear, irrefutable evidence that the law has been broken.
Thank you for talking to some of the drivers blocking the pavement there – it hadn’t, as of yesterday, done much good. But thanks for trying.
Why aren’t you systematically enforcing the very simple law that is meant to stop people driving on the pavement?
Still an issue. You’ve not resolved it at all – same vehicles parked on the same pavements every day. From this morning, on Montrose Close.
Note thats parked on a corner, over the pavement – and in the background you’ll see other cars completely blocking the pavement on the other side. This is hazardous, it is antisocial, and to drive into such a position is illegal.
Look around the corner on Roxburgh Road and its just as bad.
Come on guys, this is a hazard. Its forcing people to walk in the road – try that with a buggy or on a mobility scooter. This makes the older folk especially vulnerable and it makes the streets hostile to children.
Why is this complicated?
Dear all
Cab kindly provided photos of the parked cars. They can be viewed here.
Please note that although number plates have been obscured in the pictures full registration details have been passed to the Police.
Kind regards
Helen@ShapeYourPlace
No feedback from most recent reported images then? What do I do now, should I keep posting them? Seems to me this very obvious evidence of driving on the pavement is being ignored. Why?
Hi Cab
Thank you for your question regarding your photos of parked cars. I’ve sent a reminder to the Police but I’d be grateful if you could bear with us a little longer as they have 10 working days to respond to the points you raised in comment 5 and the photos you provided.
Many thanks
Sandy@ShapeYourPlace
Hi Cab
I thought you’d appreciate an update on your issue. Inspector Poppitt got back to me yesterday afternoon to let me know that he’d posted a response earlier in the week. Despite searching high and low, including our spam filter, there’s no sign of his response so he’s going to post it again.
Kind regards
Sandy@ShapeYourPlace
Hi Cab
Inspector Poppitt came back to me as he’s still having trouble when he’s tried to post his response. He’s asked me to post it for him.
“I’ve previously made the police position clear – each case is considered on its own facts. If a vehicle is parked on a footpath and causing an obstruction it may well get a Fixed Penalty Notice. This is not the same as the offence of driving on a footpath unless there is evidence of both. Officers have visited Montrose Close on several occasions. There were cars parked on the pavement, but at the time they were not causing an unnecessary obstruction and therefore did not receive a Fixed Penalty Notice. The North area team are aware of the issue and will use their professional judgement to deal with it”.
Kind regards
Sandy@ShapeYourPlace
Inspector this is nonsense.
A car being on the pavement was driven there, unless you’re seriously saying they’re being helicoptered in. This is evidence of the law being broken but, strangely, you don’t care. Why not? What court, anywhere, would accept the argument that a car regularly on a pavement was not regularly driven there? Why do you seek to ignore this law?
The images I posted clearly show pavements completely blocked. This is quite normal. If a completely blocked pavement isn’t obstructing, what is?
Hi Cab,
It does seem ridiculous but you might find this useful
http://pedestrianliberation.org/2010/08/30/are-vehicles-allowed-to-park-on-the-pavement/
Scott
Thanks Scott… That does clearly show that there are wider powers than the police and County Council are choosing to use.
Inspector Poppitt, perhaps you’ll stop dodging this and do something about vehicles that are clearly obstructing the pavements?
Inspector Poppitt,
Thank you for engaging with this community forum which provides people with a very useful new way of engaging with their community. Please accept this question as a general question to the police of this country – the same question could be asked of thousands of police officers across the country who respond to pavement parking in exactly the same way you have.
I was a resident of Cambridge for 25 years. 3 years ago I started a blog (pedestrianliberation.org) to explore and publicise the way that the law is not being applied to motorists and pavement parking during which time the excuses from the police for not acting has remained the same, but during which time the problem has got worse.
I am of the view that it is no longer acceptable for the police to duck the fact that section 72 of the 1835 Highways Act applies to motor vehicles as well as to bicycles. Here is a good piece on the anomaly.
http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/1835highwayact/
The standard excuse provided by the police for not applying this to drivers is that there is no evidence of who was driving at the time. Fortunately for pedestrians it is now dead-easy for members of the public to collect video evidence of who drove the vehicle onto or off the pavement using a smartphone and provide it to you. I note that video evidence appears to be very acceptable in court. I seem to remember that the police appealed for video evidence to identify rioters after the 2011 London Riots.
Finally, I note that the 1964 Police Act required every police officer to declare that they would discharge their duties ‘without favour or affection, malice or ill-will‘ (Police Act 1964 Schedule 2). This has now been updated by the Police Act 1996 and amended by the Police Reform Act 2002 to read ‘with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality.‘ (section 29 and schedule 4)
Can the police really be claiming to live up to this personal commitment to ‘fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality’ when they apply an act of parliament which covers ‘carriages of any description’ to only one sort of carriage (the bicycle) and not to another (a car) even when perfectly good evidence of the offence can easily be collected?
Hi Peter
I thought you’d appreciate an update on your comment. Just to let you know I pinged it to Inspector Poppitt on 19 August.
Kind regards
Helen@ShapeYourPlace
Many thanks.
I am very aware that this is a very difficult political issue which no one wants to address (be they the police, politicians, council officers or any other official).
I don’t have any particular issue with Cambridgeshire Police, indeed I have always found them to have always been very helpful. I have no experience of this officer but applaud him for having the decency to engage in debate on this thorny issue which appears to have ethical implications for every police officer in the country.
I have just returned from my summer leave hence my delayed response. I have previously set out the police position on this issue so I wont reiterate save to say the police’s actions have to be lawful, proportionate (is it in the public interest is relevant here as well) and based on the circumstances which present themselves at the time. To expand on the driving on the footpath thread, any driving on the footpath would need to fall into the common sense and everyday definition of driving. The driver of a vehicle who parked a car on a footpath (which was not causing an unnecesary obstruction or in a dangerous position) would not be investigated by the police for an offence of driving on the footpath unless there was clear evidence that the car had been driven on the footpath for more than a few inches to get there. Any video evidence would form part of our decision making around how to proceed with the allegation.
The offences of driving on the footpath, causing an unecessary obstruction and leaving a vehicle in a dangerouns position are all ones that the police may take action over if the circumstances are appropriate.
Thank you for responding. I very much appreciate your time on this, which I think will be very constructive, even if we do not in the end agree on your position. What is very helpful for me and others, I am sure, is to understand how at least one police force interprets these lawas.
With reference to ‘driving’ you seem to be suggesting that driving a short distance along the pavement is not actually driving. In reality the law seems to be very clear that it is.
To quote:
“The essence of driving is the use of the driver’s control in order to direct movement, however that movement is produced. There are an infinite number of ways in which a person may control the movement of a motor vehicle apart from the orthodox one of sitting in the driving seat and using the engine for propulsion. He may be coasting down a hill with the gears in neutral and the engine switched off; he may be steering a vehicle which is being towed by another. He may be sitting in the driving seat whilst others push, or half sitting in the driving seat keeping one foot on the road in order to induce the car to move. Finally, as in the present case, he may be standing in the road himself pushing the car, with or without using the steering wheel to direct it.” (R. v. MacDonagh – Court of Appeal 1974).
http://blog.bsure.uk.com/the-legal-definition-of-driving/
Ironically, it seems that the case related to a was man who pushed a vehicle off the pavement while steering it through the window while disqualified where it had been causing an obstruction at the request of a police officer !
I note a reference in the above article to a 1985 determination that a “defendant was held to be ‘driving’ a vehicle when he knelt on the driving seat, released the handbrake, and then attempted to re-apply it to stop movement of the vehicle.”
I note that according to ROSPA “Under existing law a person may even be regarded as “driving” a vehicle while the engine is running and the vehicle is stationary ”
http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/driving/mobilephoneswhiledriving/factsheet.aspx
Am I mistaken?
Inspector can you tell me where there is an exception, in law, for only driving on the pavement a little bit? Peters examples show very clearly that prosecutions can take place in such circumstances.
I put it to you that you are excusing dangerous and illegal parking because you are simply not interested in enforcing this law. You believe it would be difficult, you believe it would be unpopular with motorists who persist in breaking the law, and you do not think that the safety of pedestrians (who have to walk along the road) or cyclists (endangered because passing cars don’t need to slow down, squeezing cyclists into a dangerous road space) is important.
I feel, very strongly, that this is a shameful avoidance of police duties.
I think we are getting a little caught up in technical details. Despite the fact that possibly by the letter of the law it may be illegal to put two wheels on the pavement, that aspect isn’t something the police are going to enforce (ranks right up there with “looking at me in a funny way”)
That doesn’t remove the fact that pavement parking is very annoying when people have their street taken over by commuters/shoppers, however in some houses estates that is by “design”
However, they don’t seem willing to take action when offences like that are more dangerous e.g. parking fully on the pavement within the zigzags of a pedestrian crossing.
(Don’t get me started on stopping people speeding, where they don’t provide any sensible risk of getting caught in towns. While lack of resource may be an issue there, the avoidance of upsetting “Mr motorist” seems more of a motivating factor)
Now I know they have “far more important things to do” related to crimes most of us seldom encounter but allocating a small additional amount of resource to offenses like this may improve their public approval rating
The public interest would not be served by carrying out potentially lengthy investigations to determine who had driven a vehicle a few inches onto the pavement to park (provided there is no unnecessary obstruction or dangerous position offence or the driving was not over some distance). A technical driving it may be, but it is also an act so minor that that it would be disproportionate to take action.
The police do deal with parking offences every day, but we will not manipulate legislation to achieve an aim that was never intended originally. Pavement parking is not an offence of absolute liability so evidence would need to be gathered that gave the case more than a reasonable prospect of a conviction. This in turn if it went for a trial would need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. A huge amount of resources directed to an issue where the risk and community impact are low is not acceptable in a time when scarce resources need to follow most risk and harm.
If a community feels that strongly about pavement parking then I suggest the local authority is contacted with a view to the making of a Traffic Regulation Order under the Road Traffic Regulation Act, 1984 to restrict or prohibit pavement parking. This way there is no ambiguity and the offence is clear. In the meantime, the police will continue to review any vehicle obstruction allegations based on the circumstances found at the time.
I don’t believe you are right when you talk about ‘lengthly investigations’. Are you aware that you have been able to issue fixed penalty notices for the offence of driving on the pavement since 1999? To quote from Hansard ” Driving on the pavement contrary to Section 72 of the highways Act 1835 as amended became a fixed penalty offence on 1 August 1999. The offence applies to all driving on the pavement including by off-road motorcycles and no special review of the use of the measure has been undertaken.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030428/text/30428w53.htm
You guys can of course only issue a ticket if you witness people actually driving, but I witness people driving on the pavement numerous times a day. I am sure you do to.
Regarding Traffic Regulation Order approach I note that the ‘Disabled Motoring’ website describes this legislation as ‘an expensive and laborious process to go down on a street by street basis”. Seems as though this is just kicking the can across the street where it won’t get dealt with either!
http://www.disabledmotoring.org/downloads/campaigns/pavement%20parking/Pavement%20parking%20policy.pdf
I could quote other legislation which you could use to great effect, however with all due respect I don’t think we will achieve anything until we convince you guys and the wider public that there is an issue here that needs to taken seriously.
Personally, I think a more fruitful approach for people who are concerned about this will be to demonstrate convincingly to local police commissioners, MPs and others that pedestrians (including parents, elderly, disabled and everyone else who walks) are no longer going to be quiet on this hugely significant issue that impacts on millions of people every day and that they are going to have to deal with it. If we can ban smoking in pubs we can get the cars off of the pavement!
Thank you Inspector for having the decency to engage frankly and usefully in this discussion. Personally, I think it will only be possible and reasonable to expect you to address this issue when you have visible and committed support on the issue from many directions. Until then you would simply get a kicking from inconvenienced motorists who believe they are doing no wrong, and probably also from some of our wonderful newspapers!
Possibly Cambridge needs a high profile PR on the issue as was recently demonstrated by the Mayor of Vilnius. Could we get the Mayor of Cambridge on the case
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motoringvideo/8678227/Vilnius-mayor-runs-over-illegally-parked-car-in-a-tank.html
Inspector Poppitt, this isn’t manipulating legislation, its using the legislation as its written for what it was intended for. Its using exactly the same law that you choose to enforce to prevent pavement cycling – a phenomenon that kills more than two orders of magnitude fewer people than driving on the pavement does (in the UK about 150 times more people are killed by motorised transport while on the pavement than by bicycles). This law was intended to keep the public highway passable by all, and the examples I’ve provided you show, very clearly, that the pavement is not passable without walking into the road – this means that drivers continue to drive far more rapidly than they would with the road narrowed by parked vehicles, and it means that cyclists and pedestrians face greater risk.
Your officers have not had any impact reducing pavements being entirely blocked in the location stated. You are, measurably, failing to address this problem, and you are fobbing me off by saying that enforcing the law is not in the public interest when, frankly, its just not in your interest.
I am disappointed in you and in Cambridgeshire Constabulary. How can you claim to be a credible police force when you do not enforce fundamental road traffic laws?
Insp. Poppit’s attitude is summed up when he decribes pavement parkers as having driven “a few inches” on the footway. If he’d said “a few metres” he’d still be downplaying the problem, but he’d at least be accurate. “a few inches” is what those that accidentally put a tyre on the kerb through incompetance do, the problem pavement parkers that obstruct footways, destroy paving and rip up verges go much, much further.
I disagree with the assertion of inspector Popitt that ‘it is not in the public interest’ to prosecute pavement parking. It absolutely is in their (our!) interest. The pavement is not for cars – we have roads for that, and the steady encroachment has got way out of hand. Too many people think it is normal and reasonable to park on the pavement, when it should be something reserved for exceptional circumstances (removals, emergencies, breakdowns, building works). Judging those exceptions is the sort of thing we do trust the poice to deal with senstively, but I do not accept the current view, clearly expressed here By Insp Poppitt, that unless there is an egregious obstruction it’s absoutely fine, and even then it’s probably OK in practice.
Having to get a TRO for every street in the country where we want to stop this is just backwards. It could be specifically _allowed_ by TROs for selected roads, but the idea that it’s OK unless specifically outlawed is just wrong. Most pavement parking is because people are much more worried about being in other drivers’ way than in pedestrians’. That’s just evidence of the crazy state of mind many people have got themselves into over the hegemony of motor vehicles. Cars are not more important than people. Sometimes such parking is reasonable, but mostly it’s egregious and I’ll fully support any person or institution that will try to do something about it.
It seems pretty clear that that institution isn’t going to be the Police, without some serious pressure being applied, which as Cab observes, is a pretty sad state of affairs, because that’s exactly who we’d normally expect to be doing this.
Watched two ladies pushing children in buggys have to leave pavement along Roxburgh Road, turned down Montrose Close, and simply pushed down the road rather than the pavement this morning with other children walking along next to them. They had no choice because pavement both sides of Roxburgh Road was blocked with parked cars.
This. Is. Not. Right.
Guide dogs charity says this is a problem:
http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/news/law-needed-on-pavement-parking/#.Um5Jqfl7KDF
Come on guys, the laws are in place but you’re telling us it isn’t in the public interest to enforce.
It IS in the interest of -everyone- who isn’t breaking this law to enforce it. Cop out.