Reporting vehicles parked in a cycle lane

[PT1029]

May be also worth checking if the vehicle (or occupant, to be pedantic) has a disabled sticker. I'm not up to speed on where a disabled sticker entitles you to park.
I once saw someone motion that a vehicle was parked at the beginning of a cycle lane, double yellows as well I think (motioned = pointing at the road, nothing rude as such). The passenger's head popped out, mentioning disabled, pointer out apologized, but may not have been heard, Passenger gets out shouting that they were disabled and autistic, and then really lost it, shouting and swearing (people 100yds away turned round to see what was going on).
The pointer outer (widely perhaps) made off, probably the best way to defuse the situation. At that point the mother appeared from across the road, mentioning emergency hospital appointment for her daughter who was with her.
Laws of unintended consequences and all that, and probabaly messed up some people's day somewhat.

[mjr]

May be also worth checking if the vehicle (or occupant, to be pedantic) has a disabled sticker. I'm not up to speed on where a disabled sticker entitles you to park.

Nor am I, but I am completely sure it doesn't allow parking on zigzags.

I don't recall any disability exception to obstructing solid cycle lanes either, but I'm less sure about that.

[pwa]

Looking at that pic of the Amazon van parked on the cycle lane, it occurs to me that one aspect of this problem is that somebody in that street has ordered something to be delivered, but the delivery driver is confronted with a street that offers nowhere to legitimately stop to deliver. I have seen blue badge users occupying the spaces marked for loading only on town centre streets, again leaving delivery drivers with no good options.

[mjr]

Looking at that pic of the Amazon van parked on the cycle lane, it occurs to me that one aspect of this problem is that somebody in that street has ordered something to be delivered, but the delivery driver is confronted with a street that offers nowhere to legitimately stop to deliver. I have seen blue badge users occupying the spaces marked for loading only on town centre streets, again leaving delivery drivers with no good options.

Park around the corner and walk is a good option. The delivery company almost certainly could factor in parking restrictions, but they choose not to because they'll get fined once in a blue moon and they don't have to pay for the injuries they cause.

And still people buy from them. Just remember that they take similar care with product safety, according to the recent channel 4 documentary.

[Bmblbzzz]

That depends what they're delivering. With Amazon it's probably parcels which are easily carriable by hand or wheeled on a pallet truck thingy, but if it were eg furniture then it might not be so easy. However, parking a few metres closer to the camera would at least have not blocked the zig-zags. And as for fines, I wonder who does pay the fines? Amazon (DHL, FedEx, etc) or the driver? I expect it varies from firm to firm and on whether the driver is an employee or subbie.

[David2504]

Is it actually unlawful in the U.K. to park a vehicle in a cycle lane if the cycle lane runs alongside the road without any separating barrier or signage forbidding parking?

[cycle tramp]

Is it actually unlawful in the U.K. to park a vehicle in a cycle lane if the cycle lane runs alongside the road without any separating barrier or signage forbidding parking?

It depends on the road transport order which is enforced along that stretch of road;

If the cyclepath is marked from the rest of the road by a dashed line - then that cyclepath is advisory and on the provision there is no other restriction (white line, single or double yellow) its going to be harder to enforce parking restrictions.

If the cyclepath is marked from the rest of the road with an unbroken white line, then its been formally adopted as such and enforcement will be easier.

However.. the number of traffic wardens available is going to be down to your local council - I think the last I heard somerset (fir the whole of somerset had something like 25).. the chances of the Police being interested us going to be minimal, unless a clear and immediate danger can be established.

[pwa]

Looking at that pic of the Amazon van parked on the cycle lane, it occurs to me that one aspect of this problem is that somebody in that street has ordered something to be delivered, but the delivery driver is confronted with a street that offers nowhere to legitimately stop to deliver. I have seen blue badge users occupying the spaces marked for loading only on town centre streets, again leaving delivery drivers with no good options.

Park around the corner and walk is a good option. The delivery company almost certainly could factor in parking restrictions, but they choose not to because they'll get fined once in a blue moon and they don't have to pay for the injuries they cause.

And still people buy from them. Just remember that they take similar care with product safety, according to the recent channel 4 documentary.

The driver will have no say in where he/she is told to deliver to, and the customer in this case obviously doesn't care. I'd call a street layout with no facility for deliveries incomplete. Deliveries of all sorts are part of modern life, inevitable, necessary, but not provided for in this case. You say the driver could just park around the corner and walk, but do you know for a fact that there is a free parking space around the corner? Or is it just more of the same, as is often the case in town centres?

[plancashire]

I passed the same short bit of bike lane last Thursday. The vehicles had gone. In their place was this:
2023-11-23 Baustelle Photo1227.jpg
Look carefully - the fence is protecting nothing. They are just storing it there. I reported that too. Sigh!

If one was being charitable, I would venture the barrier has been placed in the cycle path to stop anyone from crossing the road at that point to the other side, as they will then be caught on the road and unable to use that pavement as its being dug up.
Not everyone who uses the pavement has 20 -20 vision.

Yes, it's annoying, but may possibly save someone with limited sight, the frustration and danger of being stuck on the road and unable to reach safety due to the barrier.

Thanks. I hadn't thought of that. The junction has traffic lights and pedestrian lights. Most people would likely walk a few paces to the lights and wait there for the green light and buzzer (can't remember if this one has a buzzer). Yes, we wait, we're German!

I'll look out for other similar symmetrical street blockages to see if this is the explanation. I suspect I would have noticed isolated barriers before, though, and I haven't.

[plancashire]

UPDATE: I rode past the same place, this time on a tram at night during rain. There was nothing blocking the cycle lane! OK, it was outside working hours for builders.

[plancashire]

Continuing the theme: I read an article in the local paper about a road near us where people are complaining about receiving parking tickets for parking in some spaces between trees that have recently been changed to 'no parking'. The reason for the change is that the spaces are too narrow and parked cars overhang the bike track.

I know the road, so I had a look on Sunday. The space between road and bike track is very narrow, in many places (not just those recently changed) too narrow to park without overhanging either the road, the bike track or both. Sure enough, there were six cars overhanging the bike track, forcing riders to move out onto the (wide) footway. One car extended across half the bike track, which is old and too narrow. I photographed and reported all six offenders.

There are two simple solutions here. The adjacent houses have huge grounds and drives: plenty of space there. The footway really is plenty wide enough for the small amount of foot traffic here. The bike track could be moved and widened to use some of this width.