bad leadership | Pedestrian Liberation

Archive | bad leadership RSS feed for this section

Traffic management … or illegal obstruction?

A company called Traffic Management Solutions Ltd were called out to fix some traffic lights in Cambridge yesterday. Clearly it is good to get traffic lights fixed, however… this was the start of a very sorry tale for one of our intrepid local ‘PL support officer’ who spotted the parking choice at 10:15am and then again 90 minutes later when they challenged the driver. Before I tell you what happened lets take a look a the choice of parking spot. Firstly one has to say that no, the vehicle was not in motion – indeed if one looks closely there is no one in it. The second thing to say is that no, the vehicle was not just parked here for 2 minutes. It was there for 90 minutes. It is of course on a junction partly across a pedestrian crossing at a junction on a bend on double yellow lines within the zig-zag lines of a pedestrian/cyclist crossing opposite a dropped kerb.

Neat parking!

Here is the aerial view. The vehicle position is shown in black, the pedestrian route in red.

Newnham junction vehicle location in black

Unfortunately the driver was not at all interested and indeed claimed a legal right to park there! Clearly there were very much safer opportunities nearby, indeed reversing 10 meters further back would have helped a lot. He then got very arsey about having photos taken and threatened to phone the police claiming that it was against the ‘Data Protection Act’. So far so bad.

Our ‘officer’ then phoned the police to discover what their view on this was. They did not seem very interested in the parking but did ask if the vehicle was going to be there much longer, in which case they might swing by. They did however confirm that the driver could indeed claim ‘harassment’ or ‘alarm and distress’ if the photographer was ‘distressing’ them. Given the relative size of the two people – the driver was much bigger – and the short time the discussion took, I don’t think that would hold up in court. Also, it is my understanding that it is only harassment if a ‘reasonably person’ would have been distressed which clearly was not the case.

Lets hasard as guess about what the driver was doing wrong. According to the Highway Code Waiting and Parking rules:

Rule 238

You MUST NOT wait or park on yellow lines during the times of operation shown on nearby time plates (or zone entry signs if in a Controlled Parking Zone)

Rule 240

You MUST NOT stop or park on

…
a pedestrian crossing, including the area marked by the zig-zag lines (see Rule 191)
…

Rule 242

You MUST NOT leave your vehicle or trailer in a dangerous position or where it causes any unnecessary obstruction of the road.

Rule 243

DO NOT stop or park

…
opposite or within 10 metres (32 feet) of a junction, except in an authorised parking space
…
where the kerb has been lowered to help wheelchair users and powered mobility vehicles
…
on a bend
where you would obstruct cyclists’ use of cycle facilities

That seems clear then! Note that in the above rules are identified by the use of the words MUST/MUST NOT are legal requirements, and “if you disobey these rules you are committing a criminal offence. You may be fined, given penalty points on your licence or be disqualified from driving. In the most serious cases you may be sent to prison.”

The words ‘Do not‘ mean that it is not necessarily an offence, but “The Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts (see ‘The road user and the law’) to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not'”.

So… I will now email Traffic Management Solutions Ltd and ask them politely to have a word with their drivers and encourage them to be a bit more considerate and aware of the law. The embarrassing thing for me is that it turns out that the company is based in my home town of Ipswich! Do we have a special driving test in this town? It feels as though this is just the start of a very long campaign!

Following the leader

28 Oct

People follow leaders. Here is a post office van parked right across the pavement outside Cauldwell Hall Road Post Office in Ipswich.

A post office van this time

By the time I had come out two more vehicles had lined up, one in front and one behind.

And then there were three!

It is actually possible to park off the pavement, but once one vehicle has parked across the pavement then others are much more likely to do so as well.

There is actuallly room to park off the pavement

Indeed, anyone parking legally would actually be making it even harder for people to get by. Here is the other way of parking three vehicles outside a shop, just round the corned from the post office. Not a lot of following going on here!

Another way to park three vehicles

How’s my parking?

24 Oct

Some vehicles helpfully have phone numbers printed on them making it easier to feed information about poor parking back to the employer. Today I passed a van belonging to Sliderobes parked in a stunningly inconsiderate place right outside a kid’s playground on a sunny Autumn Sunday afternoon leaving a 900mm gap between the wing-mirror and the fence. I contacted the company by phone, asking them to get the driver to move it to one of the free parking places on the road. After a bit of discussion where the driver was trying to convince me that it wasn’t obstructing anyone he moved it.

Sliderobe’s van on the pavement outside a playground

Sometimes to takes two phone calls – this van from Specialised Fixings made a speciality of parking on the same stretch of pavement. I phoned the company to complain and didn’t see it on the pavement for a couple of weeks. When it returned I complained again and I haven’t seen it on the pavement since.

Specialised Fixings’ vehicle on the pavement outside a playground

Of course it is not only vehicles that create obstructions on this section of pavement. Last week I did a blog post about these ‘obstruction’ signs for road-works that were left obstructing the same section of pavement.

Obstruction signs obstructing the pavement

Update
I have just seen the comment left on this post by Sliderobes themselves apologising. Not sure it the message is from head-office or from the Ipswich franchise. Whichever it is, the message seems to have got through this time which is good.

Comments 2 Comments
Categories bad leadership
Author Pedestrian Liberation

Policeman parks on pavement to ‘buy his lunch’

30 Aug

Here is a video clip that appears to show a policeman parking on the pavement in Liverpool to go and buy something from a local shop which is possibly his lunch. If the very people who are responsible for enforcing these laws can’t abide by them then how do they expect others to? Luckily his boss is taking it seriously and the incident will be investigated.

Jimmy Justice over in New York makes it his job it bring attention to officials who break the law. This is a pretty robust approach to citizen activism!

Closer to home I can see no particularly good reason for this police car to be on the pavement in my home town when there is plenty of room on the road.

A police car showing how not to do it!

And here is another incident where the policeman, who is stood in the building society doorway, has parked half in a bus-stop for no apparent operational reason.