Off-Road, On-Pavement

Any child knows that roads are for cars and pavements are for people. Sadly, some drivers are less well informed. This one used the off-road capabilities of his 4x4 to climb the massive kerb of Brighton’s Lewes Road to plonk his tankette on the pavement. Clearly, this was a life or death mission that justified blocking the pavement to all other users. Which is just as well, since, to quote Living Streets:

• People with disabilities, and parents with children in pushchairs are those most affected by vehicles blocking the pavement;
• The damage from pavement parking costs every local authority thousands of pounds every year in maintenance and repair;
• Any signs and physical prevention measures are both expensive and serve only to clutter the street environment;
• Enforcement of the laws can be self-financing, with no cost to the public purse;
• We should be taking pride in our streets rather than cluttering and damaging the pavements through inconsiderate parking.

Clearly, these arguments aren’t as persuasive as they could be - just out of frame of this shot, taken from a bus with steamy windows, a police car sat waiting at the traffic lights at the bottom of Elm Grove.