Wheelchair access impossible

Wibbles

I am fed up with people parking their vehicles, thoughlessly on pavements totally blocking my path and also the lack of dropped kerbs that mean that I cannot get to where I want to go without a considerable diversion - I  asked my local councillor for help a few months ago and was told that a lack of money prevented any dropped kerbs from being constructed... despite the dropped kerbs being MANDATORY.

He even suggested that I might want to pay for it myself !!

This particular missing dropped kerb is some 1/2 mile from my house.

I was wondering what would happen if I was to, accidentally scratch the side of a car - if it was blocking my wheelchair access ?

Anybody else in a similar position ?

66Mustang

TL;DR Unless things have changed its a case of you both being in the wrong but police probably wouldn't care to prosecute you because it would make them look bad.

My Dad when he was a PC was given a job where exactly this happened to a guy with a Ferrari. Old lady on motorised wheelchair scraped down the entire side of it.

He told Ferrari guy ... yes I can prosecute her ... but I would also have to prosecute you for your parking ...

(Not to mention how would the police look for prosecuting a disabled person trying to go about their daily business?)

Ferrari guy decided to drop accusation.  

Sunny_D

Isn't it this kind of issue that you pay your council tax for?

Wibbles

Sunny_D said:

Isn't it this kind of issue that you pay your council tax for?

Yes it certainly is

Wibbles

woodbine said:

In defence of councils around 32 of them are either bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy due to year after year of cuts in support from central govt. @Wibbles can you find an alternative route?

No there isn't an alternative way to cross that road
The post office is by the junction 

egister

https://www.currenttime.tv/a/27786105.html

A disabled person broke a curb to get through in a wheelchair. How did officials respond?
June 8, 2016 12:31 Moscow time

Recently, a disabled person from Krasnoyarsk got tired of waiting for officials to build ramps, and he used a hammer to smash the curb that was preventing him from getting to the hospital. Did the authorities react to this case? And has life become any easier for disabled people in the Siberian city?
Last week, the entire Internet was shocked by a video from Krasnoyarsk. Local disabled person Vladimir Zhurat got tired of waiting for officials to build ramps near his house, and he himself broke the inconvenient curb that prevented him from getting to the hospital in a wheelchair.

Sitting on his knees on a busy pavement, the disabled man broke the curb for two days, in thirty-degree heat.

"I could drive on the sidewalk. But I can't drive onto it," the pensioner explained. "I have to drive on the roadway. I'm in people's way. And I'm afraid that some driver might run into me."

"I've been to Moscow and Romania. Everything is done normally for the disabled everywhere. Even buses have lifts. But there's nothing for us. They don't do anything for us, the disabled. And they don't want to," Zhurat said.

For disabled people in Krasnoyarsk, Zhurat has become a symbol of resistance to an inaccessible environment. Anna Ivanova, one of the city's most famous activists fighting for the rights of the disabled, confirms that a wheelchair user cannot navigate Krasnoyarsk alone. That's why her husband accompanies her everywhere. Only with his help can Anna overcome the high curbs of the dental clinic and climb the steep stairs to the porch of the women's consultation department. Health workers justify themselves by saying that their institution, according to documents, should not serve the disabled.

Krasnoyarsk bloggers are also checking the city for accessibility. One of them tried to go down one of the underground passages in a wheelchair. But as a result, he got injured and broke the rented equipment.

"We have about a thousand wheelchair users in Krasnoyarsk, but most of them sit at home," says Anna Ivanova, chairwoman of the public organization "Talent." "The problem needs to be solved. It doesn't matter how, but it needs to be solved. Today they didn't help us, and tomorrow we won't be able to go out on the street."

In response to these claims, the Krasnoyarsk administration shrugs and says that Vladimir Zhurat's case is isolated. Allegedly, the pensioner really did contact them with a request to build ramps, but did not leave a written statement. And if he had, they would have definitely helped him.

"We have passed on all the information to the Department of Roads and Improvement. For a number of different reasons, we cannot solve the entire range of these complex problems at once," says Daria Gavro, deputy head of the Oktyabrsky District Administration of Krasnoyarsk. "Specialists responsible for road network safety will conduct a comprehensive assessment, and then conditions for comfortable travel will be created."

Strictly speaking, according to the administrative code, Vladimir Zhurat is a vandal. But he was forgiven for damaging city property. Now officials are calculating how much it will cost to install ramps along the entire route of the disabled person. Meanwhile, the half-broken curb is already being actively used by mothers with strollers: they say it has become much easier for them.

Current Time Report

egister

https://youtu.be/G-NVgbkj3TE?si=wWKwyhZ_wy81N0n1

Wibbles

The other problem (ongoing) is rubbish bins and recycling bins - left in the middle of the pavement by the house-holders or by bin men - who, after emptying them, simply leave them in the middle of the (already narrow) pavements !

I cannot, for example, get to the chemist on a Monday (bin day) - because of the number of bins blocking my wheelchair route !

Jimm_Scope

I purposefully put my bins off the pavement at the edge of my property because of this reason. My road isn't really one people walk through to get anywhere, but I still do it so someone doesn't have to move into the road to get around them.

The bin workers always leave them all over the pavement though… I've been thinking about mentioning something to the council and I think I really should. It's such a small thing, just put the bins back off the pavement.