At last, six months after Aberdeenshire, the Aberdeen City council is set to impose a ban – initiated by the Scottish Government – on vehicles parking on pavements.
From July 1, drivers face a £100 fine if caught breaking the new law. Hallelujah.
If only the regulation had been in force a pucklie years back when I struggled like stink trying to negotiate a pram or buggy between garden walls and parked cars. Usually on streets that were so narrow, you were taking your life – and the bairn’s – in your hands if you had to swing onto the carriageway.
Some particularly maddening motorists would be sitting in their cars as they watched me trying to inch by. Spik aboot tempted to actually scrape their vehicles just to teach them a lesson.
However, welcome though the new parking ban is, there are a couple of sticking points. A street near me is like many in the city: jam-packed with waiting cars outside the primary school around 3pm.
Trouble is, it’s a narrow road which is also a bus route. The bussies only just manage to crawl through when one line of cars is on the pavement. I dread to think of the congestion when the carriageway is even narrower.
And the only way to successfully impose the ban is to have our city wardens catch offenders and bring them to book. Some hope of that, with only 28 bodies in the squad, the council refusing to recruit more, and parents already getting off scot-free when regularly parking on yellow zig-zag lines.
Of course, the really sensible solution is for mums or dads to walk their kids to school, leaving their cars – properly parked – at home. Is that a Peppa Pig I see flying by? Sadly, it is.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press and Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
Conversation