During my background research while putting together my consultation response, I came across this rather interesting document: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmtrans/1982/1982.pdf
It's a report into pavement parking by the House of Commons Transport Committee, following up on the UK Government's promise of 2015 to look into the issue of pavement parking in England. It's dated 2019. In the summary at the beginning it states: [The Givernment] ran consultations and roundtables and held internal reviews, but this has not led to any actions that have made a difference to the public’s experience of pavement parking." Sounds familiar...
There's quite a bit of thought-provoking information in there, but the part that really caught my interest was in Section 4, under "Education and Awareness of Drivers", where it states:
Driving onto the pavement is illegal and, in almost all cases, vehicles parked on the pavement will have been driven onto the pavement in breach of this law. It is unclear how widespread public awareness is of this offence.
This is something I've been saying for years but it just seems to get shrugged off. It's interesting that an appointed group of elected representatives also 'get' it, and they also go on to outline why it's not taken seriously:
...evidence suggests drivers may do something even when they know it breaks the rules. Chris Theobald from Guide Dogs told us that a 2017 YouGov survey found that 55% of drivers had considered the impact of pavement parking on people with visual impairments but did it regardless. Ian Taylor from the Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) said the majority of its members are aware of the rules but “as regards to practice, and what people think that they can get away with, because there has not been much actual enforcement where it is not allowed, people tend to do it”. Drivers can be unaware that it is illegal to drive on the pavement, are unaware of the implications of pavement parking, or do know but park on the pavement anyway because the threat of enforcement is low.
Pretty telling to see the representative from the ABD openly admitting that drivers do it even if they know they shouldn't because the law is barely enforced, it at all, and it's become normalised. This is from the organisation which is habitually bleats on about how drivers are persecuted/used as cash cows/'waged war upon' by legislators - and yet he admits that they can't be trusted to comply with even the most basic of regulations i.e. don't drive on the <rule 2> pavement.
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