I was walking the dogs through the village at 06.00 yesterday morning when I came across a blocked pavement:

My first thought was ‘Unfortunately I’d do a lot of damage to that car if I wheeled my wheelbarrow through there’. And I would. The gap between the car and the wall is less than 0.4 of a metre. The distance between the car and the overgrown hedge/tree is 0.2 of a metre.
Then I started wondering about the mental processes that people who park on pavements must go through. I wondered if this driver thought:
- I’m going to park on the pavement because there’s a very slim chance my car might get damaged if I park it on the road. I don’t care about pedestrians who might want to use the pavement, they can just walk in the road and deal with the traffic
- I’m going to park on the pavement because there’s a very slim chance my car might get damaged if I park it on the road
- I’m going to park on the pavement because that’s a thing I always do
- I’m going to park on the pavement
They must have thought one of those options, surely?
Anyway, then I thought about how the top end of that road always has vehicles parked on the pavement (both sides of it usually) during school drop-off/pick-up hours. My mind played with the irony of a parent not being able to push a wheelchair up the far end of the pavement because it is blocked by parents dropping their kids off at school. I know it is illegal to park on the pavement in that London. I also know that whilst it is not illegal to park on the pavement in these parts, it is illegal to block pedestrian access and/or cause an obstruction through careless/reckless parking. I also enjoyed the irony of the local rozzers going in to that school once a year to teach the kids about various safety issues when it’s the parents of those children who need that talk, not their offspring.
Idiots.
We have similar issues round here.
There is a large transit van in the next road, that blocks the pavement by parking on it.
Refusing to go into the road to pass it, the dog and I walk across his front garden.
Oh, I do like your walkaround workaround. Unfortunately that wouldn’t work for this instance, but I do like the solution which I shall bear in mind for the future.