Friday 21 November 2008

Middle of the Road

This is early evening near Somerfield's on St Michael's Hill, pencilled in as part of the Kingsdown CPZ. A zone in which it is promised that there will be short-stay parking provided for the shops, so that you can nip in and out of the local supermarket with ease. Currently there is 1-hour-max echelon-parking zone in front of the supermarket (echelon parking is Dept of Transport speak for sideways parked; it is very dangerous to bikes and not advised). Because parking times aren't enforced, its a park-all-day zone for everyone and the nearby taxi firm. What to do if you want to shop? Especially given there is no cycle parking here.

This car, P455GBD has shown what to do. Just stop in the middle of the road. Yellow line rules apply to the side of the road. They even apply to pavements.

But the middle of the road? Unlikely. If that was the case you would not be able to have roads which have yellow lines on one side only. Indeed, its possible that you will still be able to park this way once the CPZ gets deployed.

Middle of the road parking area it is, then.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you're missing the main point here. Look at that gap alongside the car- very small for another motor vehicle, but lots of space for a cyclist. Yes- this is actually a cyclist friendly traffic calming measure by a concerned citizen, who knows that any legal attempts to slow cars down would take months, but wants to help cyclists now.

Well what are you waiting for, get those cars parked now, and give the driver of P455GBD a medal for his courage...

And tell them to park closer to the middle next time.

SteveL said...

That is a good point. A bike feed to the left. And if it is completely in the middle: a bike and foot only region behind it