h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here I was thinking I was the only person that found this current practise reprehensible.

There is no legal excuse available to these elitist lame-brains that could possibly justify their behaviour. What makes it worse is the inability of the Police and Traffic Wardens (at least in Britain) to do something about it. How is it handled in the rest of the world?

Until the authorities start to do their jobs, just do what I do and make no attempt to squeeze or sidle past offending vehicles. Wing mirrors can be fragile things...

Unfortunately wing mirrors can make quite a noise as a swinging arm removes them. You don't actually want to alert the (possibly nearby) owner of the car that a certain part of it has been removed, however accidentally. It would only cause them unnecessary upset.

In the days when we had a pushchair, I used to take great delight in going past pavement parked cars. Scraaaaaaape. I considered fitting the pushchair with some spiky bits of metal in order to enhance the experience, but my children might have hurt themselves on them, so I abandoned that plan.

How is it handled in the rest of the world? Well, in the US, and especially here in Texas, the car driver is a god. At least you'd think so considering that any politician who does anything to hinder them in the slightest way is risking political suicide. In the town where I live (Austin), pavement parking isn't too much of a problem because a) the streets are mostly pretty wide, b) most homes have their own driveway and/or garage, and most shops/restaurants/post offices/etc have car parks, and c) until recently this was a fairly quiet town with no appreciable traffic problems. I should add too, that a lot of streets here, especially in residential areas, and out of the downtown area, don't even have pavements!
I well remember that tv ad the GLC ran when they introduced their anti-pavement parking legislation in the early 80's, of a little old lady kicking a... I think it was a Jag, off the pavement and into the road where it belonged, because she couldn't get past it.
Very few of the people who own a car in London (or other large cities with good public transport) have a pressing need for one, but as there are so many, the GLC had to amend the legislation to allow pavement parking in designated areas because so many London streets are less than three cars wide - in other words, if there are cars parked on each side of the road, there isn't room for a car (or emergency vehicle!) to pass along the middle. Many of them are also only slightly more than three cars wide, which means that two cars travelling in opposite diresctions can't get past each other. The sensible thing to do with streets like that would be to make them one-way and put in traffic-calming, rather than allowing pavement parking.

I have a Cunning Plan: large orange placards (that A3 Dayglo paper shoulds do fine) printed as follows:

"National Crass Parking Awards, 2001

** FINALIST **

This vehicle has met the criteria of being parked in a crass, selfish, ignorant way to the detriment of everybody but it's driver"

I agree 100% with all that's been said above. And I'm a frequent car user!

I think it was a bit much however when I parked my car nose in to the pavement in a properly marked and metered parking bay in Edinburgh (and paid the parking charge) and came back later to find a "Pavements for Pedestrians" sticker on my windscreen. My "offence" was that the front of my car was overhanging the pavement by about 6".

In some towns in France the parking meter bays are half on the road - half on the pavement.

another example of poor citizenship is letting one's dog do his business on the pavement.

for those not faint of heart, or at least sufficiently irate not to balk at a distasteful task (actually, with a plastic bag or piece of paper the operation can be effected with surprising convenience) , there is a synergetic solution to the problem: generous applications of the offending substance to the offending vehicle. the intake areas for interior ventilation are the best location.