Thanks for letting me know he was Polish but glad you did that too to be honest.

I'd keep chasing with the DVLA, council etc if necessary emali the local newspaper with pictures of 3 untaxed cars on the road and the council or whoever will soon do something about it.

If people are coming over from Poland to live they need to pay car tax, they are probably uninsured too as you can't get insurance without tax, therefore speaking to the local community police may get action if they are uninsured too - the police can check on the database.

I think its the other way round, you cannot get tax without having insurance

this is why i have a dslr.

i don`t want a phone, i`ve got a few old ones kicking about, i`ll just wave one like i`m taking a shot

Good for people to continue to raise this issue on the forum - it quite rightly irritates a lot of people.

In all the years that I drove a vehicle, I always parked it in a car park.

Coming to live near Leominster, Herefordshire, it is a frequent occurrence that vehicles are parked on the pavements. So one vehicle parks on the pavement, blocking it and half of the street. Another vehicle comes along, driving on the pavement the other side.

Not only that, but the motorists are so impatient with each other, sounding their horns when there is no need.

This so annoyed me that I haven't gone into the central streets of Leominster for many months now.

There is a railway station and plenty of businesses out of town that mean it is not at all necessary to go into the central streets of Leominster.

If Leominster in Herefordshire want myself and others to visit the town centre businesses, then they have to stop vehicles coming into the central streets during shopping hours. It is entirely within the hands of the traders and the Town Council whether they want just a few people in cars, or lots of people in a car-free environment.

That's the only way to fight this issue. Throw the problem back onto the people who are allowing it to happen.

The car park of the distribution centre I worked at would have kept the police and DVLA busy for days!

Bald tyres, missing wing mirrors, permanently damaged lights and tyres very low on pressure. Most of these belonged to the Eastern Europeans. I asked one Polish man about it and he said they simply don't care. His car was always maintained by the way and it annoyed him that they get away with it!

It's the constant war on the car who is killing many town centres. Sky high parking charges for a few hours send people to the out of town places with ample free parking.

The traffic wardens could also I some common sense too. I used to serve a family who all had a lot of mobility issues and for years they would shop and arrange to be picked up outside our store. The car was there for under a minute while they loaded up, we usually helped too. The traffic warden that had been there years just ignored it happening as he knew we had many older customers and those less mobile.

He left and the new person had a zero tolerance approach. Even a few seconds stop was enough for a ticket despite it never causing any problems or generating a single complaint.

It sounds like there is a chronic need for more (and reasonably priced) car parks.

what about pedestrians blocking the roads, Soho is a nightmare for this, it takes about five minutes to drive down Old Compton Street, they think we won't run them over but one day they will come unstuck ?

Not just pedestrians blocking the roads, but also the pavements themselves; The amount of times city boys are stood outside their most recent favourite destination pub taking up the whole pavement.

Get the hell out the way, Donny.

Especially when you have more than a few small bags. I don't see the logic of forcing cars to the big retail parks and killing town centres. We need a new kitchen bin but to park up for 5 minutes would mean paying for an hour, at £2.20 or cheaper if you park quite a distance away.
Or free at the independent shop killing supermarket!

I want to shop locally but the weight of some items means I can't carry them without frequent rests and a lot of back pain.

Catching the bus is almost as expensive too. About £1.50 for a mile and a half! Actually more expensive as it's a £3 round trip.

Our local police are clamping down on foreign registered vehicles and making them priority stops as we are not near the coast and not a tourist area so any foreigners are likely to be residents and so shouldn't be driving foreign registered cars. They have siezed dozens for not having tax/insurance/MOT's or just unroadworthy, and their respective drivers for not exchanging their foreign license for a UK one or not even having one to exchange.

Overstaying foreign cars are according to the police a menace on the roads as they can't be insured or MOT'd so not taxed, they can park/speed and be driven with impunity as can't be traced by their foreign VRM.

Also you can only legally keep a non UK registered car in the UK for six months without UK registering it (there was a polish couple in the next street who were driving around in a polish registered heap for 18 months which was obviously not taxed/insured or MOT'd as you can't a non uk vehicle, before suddenly being replaced by a UK registered heap).

Top marks for probably the most stupid reply on this thread. So you obviously park your car fully on pavement forcing people to walk in the road. If the road is so narrow people should drive somewhere where the road isn't narrow so they can walk in the road there - you could not make it up.

We have complained to the council so many times about ignorant car\van\lorry drivers parking fully on pavement on the road where we live. Tough luck if you can't walk in the road. The council don't do anything about it because they don't have the manpower to nick these ignorant drivers but just put up posters telling drivers not to.

yes, I am a peaceful person but blokes like that give me the urge to mount the pavement and commit an atrocity

Many, if not most households have both parents working, that usually means (unless you live in London/Birmingham/Manchester et al) that both will have to drive to get to work, then as their kids get older, then will need a car and grown up children are leaving home later and later these days.

Why would you be cruising down old crompton street.

You are lucky, at least you have a pavement! My close has none after the first 10 yards, idiotic planning approvals were given for the development 25 years go and we still have to suffer their stupidity.

On occasions it has been known round our way for people to accidentally brush past with a screwdriver in their hand, allegedly

To be fair, you're very unlikely to get run over in a cul-de-sac.

Here's one of them, on a busy thoroughfare. If you push hard enough you can move the hedge a bit and walk sideways. There's plenty more too and I saw two elderly people from the nearby flats having to walk in the road too.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ei3dbrv6j0...94650.jpg?dl=0

That's a fallacy, there are many commercial vehicles using it daily, often having to reverse, as well as the locals with their two and three car families. Kids are at most risk and the built-in sharp bends presumably intended to slow traffic in fact make things worse for them. Admittedly parked cars on pavemented roads are a danger too, I'm not claiming that it's any more dangerous here than there, just that penny pinching has created an unnecessary danger.

How many people do you suppose get run over by reversing vehicles compared to those travelling at 30mph?

I have a neighbour that half parks on the pavement outside his front door despite there being multiple parking spaces less than 20 steps away. I have no idea why he does it, a wheelchair or buggy probably couldn't fit past his car. I'm assuming it's laziness on his part

Cars tend to do this around me despite drives/garages/carports available for them to park. I have to admit fighting the temptation to get my keys out is quite hard. They do it though to make sure emergency services have enough room to get through. They were all blocking the road before the council sent out letters.

As annoying as it is I have to admit I'd rather pavements blocked than emergency services not able to get where needed.

Our council seems to think that the semis opposite need no parking restrictions on the road outside their houses, despite them having garages and room for another car on their drives. Meanwhile, us poor plebs in our terraced homes on this side who have no garages or drives are treated to a double yellow. Go figure, as the annoying phrase goes.