Depending on where you live you might occasionally encounter the problem of parked vehicles on pavements, this can vary from a car or other vehicle being parked half on the pavement and half on the road but in some cases the whole car will be parked on the pavement, all four wheels leaving little to no space for people to pass.

This is a problem for anyone, even an individual with no disabilities will struggle to get past or be forced to walk into the road to get past, but it is even worse for people that are using a mobility aid, whether you are using a mobility scooter, wheelchair, crutches, walking stick, walking frame or holding onto a friend or relative who is providing support for you, it is an inconvenience for you to have to walk into the road in order to carry on your way.

Often there is no particularly obvious reason for a driver to do this, you will see this in streets where there is ample space on the road, it is inconsiderate as it doesn’t give people the choice other than to try and squeeze past or walk onto the road where they otherwise wouldn’t need to.

As there are complaints at times about some mobility scooter users not being considerate of others I feel that it is also important to point out how some drivers are inconsiderate by parking their vehicles in this way.

It is always important to mention that these types of problems are from a very small number of drivers, just in the same way that it’s a small number of mobility scooter users who don’t operate theirs as safely as they should.

Sometimes I’m surprised at drivers parking their cars fully on the pavement when the road is wide enough for them to park it on the road without narrowing the road enough to cause problems, I feel that there is more risk of a car actually getting the paintwork scratched and scuffed by people trying to squeeze by.

Without a lack of respect for using the roads, pavements and anywhere else in a safe manner I feel that avoidable problems will continue to occur, pedestrians, mobility scooter users, cyclists, motorcyclists, car, van and truck drivers, even bus drivers, joggers and all others that use public pavements, roads, paths, tracks etc need to be as responsible as possible, everyone needs to think about how their actions and their behaviour affects other people, in ways that are not always obvious or immediate because understandably people don’t always see straight away how something may be problematic.