It can be difficult to find a good parking spot, especially when you have a large work van that is needed for a job.

What would you do if you saw that two work vans were blocking the sidewalk where school kids have to walk to get to school and home each day, causing them to have to go into the street?

That is what the parent in this story saw, so when the driver yelled at her, she made sure to get in touch with the police and his company to ensure he didn’t park like that ever again.

Van drivers keep blocking the pavement, making it dangerous for pedestrians – gets in trouble with his boss and police

In the UK it’s currently not illegal to park on pavements other than a few locations.

Where I’m based is one of the few places you get fined.

For a few weeks there vans constantly blocking the pavement on a school run route with the vans on the only pavement available and blocking the view.

Cars often fly down and around the corner as it’s a rat route to sneak in front of a load of traffic if you know about it, so it’s pretty dangerous if you are a pedestrian if the walkway is blocked.

It started with maybe just one van but you could still squeeze past.

They should know not to park that way.

Not good if you have any mobility issues or aids, or any push chairs.

Being a school run route obviously there’s push chair traffic and young kids on bikes and scooters.

Quickly though it was starting to get to two vans with at least one blocking the pavement.

I’d take photos to try and report it but two kids and job with a different walk home for various reasons meant that I kept forgetting.

This isn’t going to be going away any time soon as they have parked a trailer on the grass verge for the tools and things.

Cue to the final straw.

This sounds very dangerous.

Two vans with one completely parked across the pavement and another one parked completely across the pavement and over the bumpy (for those with visual impairments) dropped curb.

It’s right in front of the trailer and with a company name on the side for once.

I had to take my young kids into the middle of the road to get safely to the next and just as we had crossed a car covered flying around the corner and down the road.

Glad we had been 10 seconds earlier…

Let’s just say I tell my kids just that because of the dangerous parking.

I immediately take a photo as normal and just as I do a guy comes out of trailer and works out that I am taking a photo and starts shouting at me.

I’m guessing he heard me mention the parking and twigged me then taking a photo was not a good thing for him.

“The cars get get by!”

“It’s not safe for anyone else though”

Wow, what a jerk.

“bUt CaRs CaN!!! YOU CAN’T TAKE A PHOTO OF MEEEEE! I’LL CAN THE POLICE”

“Don’t worry, I’m contacting the authorities about your dangerous parking” and walked off taking my kids to school.

Guy had a work top on, turns out was in the edge of the photo, van had logo and website on the side and my photo caught all of this and how bad his parking was.

I contacted the highways team with all the photos, local councilor and his company.

His company are a big company so I immediately got one of the meeting automatically sent emails about how awesome the company was.

Replied going “hey marketing, sorry I’m about to mess up your unsubscribe stats and things. Also heads up, this happened and I know marketing teams being from one that we can make things happen fast when things go sideways. This went down this morning with one of your employees at x location. I’ve sent it to the following people and will do what I need to ensure that the route goes back to being safe again after this morning. If you can work your magic, here’s a photo of the guy and the van.”

They didn’t want this type of bad press.

Less than 10 minutes later I get a message going “we’re on it, thanks for the heads up. Leave this with us – it won’t happen again.”

Police get back to me a week later (it was a non urgent issue and it was reported to the highways people who referred it on) and said they were following up on it too.

They’ve not being parking on that pavement at all and all the kids get safely to the two primary schools and two secondary schools this is a key route for.

He thought he could shout and intimidate a short (I’m tiny) but instead got him and all his co workers in trouble with their company and the police…

Well played, people need to learn to park safely for everyone.

Let’s see what the people in the comments think about this story.

No matter the country, this was a great story.

Here is the husband of a crossing guard.

Yes, this was very well played.

This person thinks it is a story of justice.

It is a valuable lesson.

Great job protecting the kids.

You’ve gotta do it.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.