Keeping a safe space on the road

A recent postbag contribution from a reader, when he indicated that we like to make a mountain out of a molehill over pavement surfing, produced quite a response on this page too.

Interesting then that when pavement surfing was raised in the States last week, the president of the Home Affairs Committee was able to say that more than 160 fixed penalty notices had been handed out this year for the offence of driving on the pavement. Many would have been surprised that the issue was of such importance for law enforcement.

The nature of local roads is that we all have to mount the pavement at times. That leads to an encouragement to drive, even for a short while, on that pavement. But in certain roads – Route des Capelles, as highlighted in the States, and Bailiff’s Cross Road is always mentioned – going too far on the pavement has become endemic.

We would like to think that no motorist would deliberately drive on a pavement with a pedestrian there, but equally no motorist should get free reign to treat the footpath as a thoroughfare. So while we may be surprised at the level of interest from the time-pressed police on this issue, the response sounds proportionate and feels appropriate.