Thread by @Wheelchair_View

Quick thread: I'm deleting my Twitter ASAP. The reason I'm going is I was nearly killed today by a driver obstructing a drop kerb & tactile paving. He drove at me as my carer photographed him, as I tried to negotiate a higher kerb because he was obstructing the drop kerb. @YPLAC

It's all well & good me raising awareness of #PavementParking & pavement obstructions but it's not worth me losing my life for. You can see the damage caused to my wheelchair & I'm just grateful it wasn't me who was damaged, physically anyway, but my heart's still racing from it.

I'm 85 & I just want to get out as much as possible before the next full lockdown. I enjoy the fresh air & have to travel a couple of miles to get it. My carer pushes me to a lovely park most days & I'm in heaven sitting there watching the wildlife. I hope to continue doing that.

We're both going to be a lot more cautious in the future & not be as naive as in the past - taking photos of vehicles illegally obstructing our way. It's not worth the hassle. I've had a few 'discussions' in the past with drivers illegally parking but nothing like today.

The police turned up & were very helpful. My carer didn't press charges but the driver was still charged with common assault for threatening him all the same. I never did this to get people in trouble, just to raise awareness of the problems we face daily, never thinking of this.

Please be very careful when taking photos of illegal parking. Some drivers are a lot more dangerous than you could ever imagine. @YPLAC does a great job of highlighting this & I really appreciate the time & effort they put in in making thousands of people aware of illegal parking

I want to thank you all for your kindness & help in the short time I've been on here. It's reassuring to know there's some amazing people still left out there, people willing to help others in any way they can; be that by offering information, advice or comfort. Thank you all. ❤

I thought I'd sleep on my decision to quit but I didn't really get much sleep. I'll add a few more details about yesterday's incident just so you will know the minds of some drivers. I'm not banding all illegal parkers into the same category, I've met some lovely, apologetic ones

This occurred on a very busy main road where illegal parking is rife. The area is dangerous enough for a new private security team to patrol it. The local police tweeted about it on Thursday. I won't retweet it for fear of bringing more attention to myself. Anonymity is important

The area this new security team covers must be a mile long. It actually covers 2 main roads, almost straight. I never understood why it wasn't just named the 1 road but that doesn't matter. For years we've been emailing police & the council to do something about illegal parking..

But nothing much has really been done to tackle it, pretty much like most of the country. The local police introduced a few initiatives, one being ticketing 'irresponsibly' parked cars with the slogan 'park it, don't plonk it' but that didn't really change anything, how would it?

The junction where this happened is notorious for obstructed by illegally parked vehicles. It's in a local shopping area & businesses complain their customers have nowhere to park & how they lose vustom by the lack of parking. So drivers park pretty much everywhere around here.

I was lucky that the new security team were less than fifty metres away when this occurred. My carer ran to them & reported what had just happened. They immediately phoned the police & kind of held the driver, who had driven to the opposite side of the road 200ft further down.

I think he only stopped because my carer shouted after him, whilst filming him driving off, that he was reporting him. Maybe the driver thought the security team was the police & pulled in? That's conjecture but I was more concerned about my palpitations & state of my wheelchair.

The weirdest thing about this is that THREE further vehicles attempted to illegally park at this corner whilst we waited for the police with a member of the street security team, only moving on when the member of the security team reminded them they'd be parking illegally there.

The most sublime thing was when a car drove the full length of the pavement, from one side road to the one we were waiting on, the passenger gesturing for the security guy to move out of their way - move out of a car's way which had just driven fifty metres on the pavement!

This is the corner where the incident happened. I won't use the photo of the car illegally parked yesterday in case there's a court case. Even in the Google Street View screenshot, there's a private hire car illegally parked here & another car #PavementParking further down!

There's a dentist & opticians amongst the shops here. Someone with an appointment at either could be illegally parked here for 30mins or more. What are wheelchair users supposed to do in the time their way is obstructed here? Thats why #PavementParking should be illegal anywhere!

The worst thing is that the car obstructing me yesterday wasn't even pavement parking, it was parked on the road, obstructing the drop kerb & tactile paving. The driver saw us crossing here & still decided to park there, knowing he'd be blocking us.