15 April (Part 1) - When a parking fine becomes a lottery
The
law about parking and dropped kerbs ought to be pretty clear; as a rule of
thumb, don’t park across them, but things are in reality more complicated than
that. Bexley council has
a good leaflet on the subject which explains things. Probably you should
read it yourself but in essence, at any crossover giving access to more than one
driveway or at the corner of many roads, keep well away. The complicated bit is
the law as it applies to single access drives. You can park in front of those unless
the owner has asked the council to enforce restrictions. How is one to tell if a
single drive is registered or not? It’s another trap for motorists, best keep
away, especially as it is extremely inconsiderate to block anyone’s drive.
When a crossover is part of a relatively straight road, where one should park is very obvious. You
stop either before or after the footpath crossover. But what if the crossover is
at a corner such as the one outside my own house? One can legally park against
the kerb to the right of the first picture but how far along it do you have to
be to not risk a fine for blocking a driveway? No one knows.
In my road the question is academic, no one here is such an evil wotnot as to
tittle-tattle to the council if access to their drive
is a little restricted but remains possible. Not everyone is so lucky.
The
Google Earth picture shows a similar situation in Bexley. As you can see, a line
of cars is parked along a cul-de-sac right up to the house
at its corner. (Top middle of Photo 2.) There
are no parking restrictions and no marked bays, so how close to the house in the
corner can you park without risking a fine? Once again, no one knows.
I went to take a look for myself at the weekend and did not meet a friendly
reception. However it was obvious that the corner resident was never likely to
be blocked in by anything less than a small bus. Clearly this is not a road as
harmonious as my own but someone who objected to me carrying a camera told me
that the situation was in practice very simple. If you are a friend of the
corner resident you can park pretty much where you like and if you are not you
will probably be reported to the council and fined. If he is correct it is legally
very far from being satisfactory.
A
resident who has been fined for parking as in Photo 3 asked Bexley council for guidance. How far
away from the awkwardly placed drive does one have to be to be able to park free
of persecution? There must be a place at which parking become unreasonably close
to a drive and there must be one at which it is just as clearly perfectly
OK. The Listening council refuses to say, in fact it is worse than that, the
Listening council refuses to reply to any enquiries. It is much more profitable
to issue a fine on the whim of a resident.
Photo 3 also shows that the corner resident could never be blocked in by a parked car,
although in an extreme case he may have to drive over some grass. It’s a good job
he doesn’t live in my road (Photo 4) where people put up with a bit of inconvenience
now and again and no one complains about people carrying cameras.
Bexley council should never allow any single resident such arbitrary powers.
It’s bad enough that they adopt them for themselves.