A quick poll. Do please response in the comments section below if you have either been splashed or nearly splashed by passing vehicles when walking. If you were splashed then did you think it was carelessness on the part of the motorist or possibly deliberate? I was very nearly caught recently when a motorist chose to keep going even though to do so would mean that he would drive straight through a puddle right where I was standing.
Also if you have experienced puddles that make it hard or inconvenient to cross the road? The first photo below shows a problem that it would be so easy for our council to avoid. Why on earth does the road have to dip down just at the point where people are expected to cross? Why was this not tested with the dropped kerb was installed? Why was it not fixed with the road was resurfaced? Grrrr
And then this one. Here a large puddle (and a stupidly parked car to make matters worse) creating significant risk of a major soaking for pedestrians including the two who are approaching.
Ok, so the questions again:
- Have you been splashed or nearly splashed by passing cars when walking?
- Do you think it was deliberate or carelessness?
- Also.. are there places where standing water on roads and the pavement makes it difficult for you to walk in wet weather?
Please respond below in the comments field:
Pedestrian Liberation 
Pedestrian come on be real what fun would it be if the heads of your local Council could not go round in their flash cars soaking us lowly Pedestrians. When it comes to Pedestrians no one cares. I am a wheelchair user I have been try for years to get paths fit for me to use. That is level without bumps that nearly knock me out. I now have started using the roads as they are in far better condition with all the extra money spent on them this year. I have had motorist telling me to get out of the road right next to cars parked on pavements. You got it you can’t get by in wheelchair, or pavement that damaged by car or lorries after park on them they are unusable by wheelchair with out grounding out or get shaken that much it painful. I have had Police threaten to take my wheelchair away. I still use the road I wrote to the police and the local council and declared paths unsafe for me to use. I then went on that I was excising my right as pedestrian to use the road as paths are unsafe. You would have thought this would get council to repair pavement to a good standard not on your life. You get we think it manageable the one thing they have not got when making this decision is my conditions so their judgement will always be floored. This is fact of life Highways department look at rule book and say it does not come to intervention level. I would point out to them it that intervention levels are guide lines when they have to do something whether they like to or not. It is not a standard that they have to keep them in better is best. One would think that if disabled person was having trouble on a length of pathway they would do something about it. When highway department will not do anything to help the disabled what change do you think just pedestrian getting wet have got. The sad fact of it all is cars are more important to them than people walking. I bet you if us pedestrian started walking round these puddles in the road to stop cars driving in them when your going past you would get something done about them or your get done for something like obstruction of highway. When in fact you could argue that you where using road as you would have been in danger of get soaked by a car. Flooding on roads and pavement what causes this. There are number of things to take into account. 1. Bad workmanship and no thought of where water will run to as in your photos. 2. Leafs not being cleared and getting washed down drains. 3. The worse offenders are your litter bugs. All that rubbish being washed down storm drains. As we all can see get soaked by standing water can not always be placed to the Highway department there are times when it is the public ( or some of them ) are to blame for use getting soaked. Andrea
Thank you. It makes me so sad. The hierarchy of transport is a hierarchy of bullying. I was threatened today by the driver of a 18 tonne lorry parked across a pavement that was…. delivering 4 pints of milk. Yup 4 pints of milk in an 18 tonne vehicle. He said he was allowed to park across the pavement on a double yellow no loading for 15 minutes. Actually… he was breaking a number of laws. One day MPs may wake up to this. One day.
Bullying is common place form all drivers. In Peter’s place Big lorry and no brains. Case in mind I told driver not to block paths told go another way. You call Police they tell you to go another way. When you do ie use the road as no other way to go in a wheelchair. The same driver started reporting me for using the road in wheelchair and taking videos of me. I reported this to police as stalking. I was told he allowed to follow you taking films of you doing this?. If the Police are allowing this kind of thing happening what change have you got. When you report this to the I.P.C.C. they don’t do anything as it is control and direction matter. What is that the Police have no control or direction and you don’t matter.well that is how I take it.After all we are Pedestrians. You human rights don’t come in to it.We all know the law it getting the right people to up hold it.
Then you get neighbour hood police we stop parking outside schools. that all well and good. That when you look at it is only an hour or so a day. I’m elderly disabled and I don’t go to school it the streets around where I live that parking on pavement that is the problem. You got signal lane roads that is after cars parked down one side. Then the path is blocked you have to use the road. Then you get some driver coming down the road over speed limit missing you by an inch and there is nothing you can do to get out of the way. You can bet if there was an accident it would be your fault. You should not be in the road when there is a good pavement you can use. They always seem to forget that pavement was blocked by you got it a car. Andrea.
I walk around puddles in the road to stop cars splashing me, its the only way! If its shallow enough I will just walk in them, as no one really WANTS to walk on the road.
I got splashed a few years back when walking to the bus stop. I challenged the driver about it and told him he’d “bloody soaked me” and that working a day in wet clothes wasnt really on. Next thing I knew his fat git of a mate jumped out the passenger door and threatened me…
I complained to the council about it and got the message back that “puddles were not our priority” or something along those lines.
I do get a feeling much of the splashing is down to drivers feeling more important than the people they splash, sometimes they seem to take glee in soaking people as you can see them laughing. Drivers know they’re not supposed to drown people, they’ve done the test. They also know deep down that water back flowing from sewers is not going to be sanitary and they’d not like to get this on their clothing or in their mouth.
Thank you. Do please keep the stories coming. Sad but powerful.
Have you been splashed or nearly splashed by passing cars when walking?
Yes
Do you think it was deliberate or carelessness?
sometimes careless, sometimes deliberate and other times impossible to avoid.
Also.. are there places where standing water on roads and the pavement makes it difficult for you to walk in wet weather?
Yes.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HCBSPN6
In St. Leonards, just down the road from me, at the bottom of London Road, junction with the sea front. There is a pedestrian controlled crossing, it’s a PUFIN crossing (Pedestrian User Friendly INtelligent). Sounds wonderful but there is a huge problem. When it rains the road directly by this crossing floods really badly, so badly that it is actually very difficult at times as a driver to avoid going into the puddle as it can stretch out to the middle island. The problem is that, as this is a Pufin crossing, you have to stand next to the lights for it to register that you are there otherwise the lights will never change. Of course this puts you in the firing line for vehicles driving through the puddle. Some will slow down but others don’t care and you get soaked. An example of really poor design/maintenance.
Completely off topic for this thread but I just came across this.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/martin-horwood-mp-writespavement-politics-44022.html
What a pity that it is unlikely to become law.
Yes, a valiant attempt at creating a law. Nice also to see him using one of my photos in his post 🙂
I got wet through on the way to school this morning taking my 2 boys, I took the brunt of it as I was on the outside of the road, on my way home after dropping the kids off I got soaked from head to foot this car went straight through a puddle at the side of me although there wasn’t one car coming in the opposite direction, I did take a photo of the number plate, as I felt this could have been avoided, who do I report her to?
Well done for getting the number plate. Try your local police. If they won’t help try the local paper with a story that the police won’t do anything. See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/puddle-soaked-pedestrians-report-scores-of-drivers-to-police
Several big puddles on a stretch of road on my way to work. There are even two if front of bus stops.
Recently I was on the pavement about to cross and instead of waiting for me to do so a car driver drove through a sizeable puddle despite seeing me.
Mind, he did get a dented back passenger door for his trouble.
Funny how that made him stop but the sight of pedestrian near the puddle didn’t.
It can definitely be deliberate, I’ve seen idiots do it and laugh. Also it can be due to stupidity/carelessness or just not caring less or not even realising. It can happen by accident as the nature of the puddle may well be unclear to the driver.