A mother with a son who has a brain injury has vented her frustration about an "inconsiderate" driver forcing them to walk on the road.
Michelle Williams, 59, from Bedworth was pushing her son Ashley in his wheelchair when they came across a badly-parked Mercedes on the pavement on Furnace Road.
Due to a lack of room on the pavement, Michelle had no choice but to push Ashley's wheelchair onto the road which could have endangered both herself and her son.
She shared the image of the poorly-parked vehicle in a bid to encourage other drivers to be more considerate, Coventry Live reports.
Ashley, 25, is permanently restricted to a wheelchair after a violent attack last year. He suffered a bleed in the brain and two strokes, causing a brain injury which has left him using a wheelchair.
Michelle aired her frustrations in a Facebook post, labelling the driver "inconsiderate" for parking on the pavement. She wrote: "Makes me so angry, inconsiderate morons parking like this I couldn’t even get by. I had to go on the road with Ash it’s totally unacceptable people who do this should be fined."
The mum received many supportive messages on Facebook after sharing the image, as many lashed out at the driver for parking on the footpath. One user wrote: "They don't think about anyone else mate bloody awful."
Another user added: "They should be find they don’t think they care about people in wheelchairs or pushchairs."
Meanwhile, one added: "Omg how awful is this!! Totally unacceptable & unfair! Hope u and Ash r okay."
Ms Williams told Coventry Live: "I'm my son's main carer and he has a brain injury. He got hit over the head with a bottle on April 1 last year which left him with a bleed on the brain causing him to have two strokes."
"He’s only 25 and permanently in a wheelchair and I took a picture of the car along Furnace Road in Bedworth. It's a problem all over Bedworth where I live and it does make me feel really angry when a car is parked more on the path than the road."
Pavement parking is outlawed in London and the government is considering extending this across England. However, the laws around pavement parking elsewhere in the UK are not clear cut.
The Highway Code rule 244 states that drivers outside London 'should not' park on the pavement, rather than 'must not', which means it is only advice that is not backed up by any legislation. It is however illegal to drive on the pavement.
This law is difficult to enforce, because police officers need to see someone driving on the pavement. If not, there is no direct proof the car was driven on a footpath and theoretically could have been lifted into place.
It is the council's responsibility to clamp down on pavement parkers. Drivers can get fined if their parked car causes an obstruction to wheelchair users or pushchairs.
Parliament is currently considering passing new laws later this year which could impose £70 fines for anyone caught parking on the pavement, even if there are no yellow lines or the vehicle is not causing an obstruction, which would make the rules easier for local authorities to enforce.
