Will there be a ban on sidewalk parking in Great Britain? Only one in five is against it.

Julie Pilsworth, 45, from Grimsby, is registered blind after being diagnosed with glaucoma and also uses a mobility chair due to a range of health problems.

She is also the primary caregiver for her 25-year-old son Ash, who is also disabled.

Maeve, Julie’s guide dog for four years, helps Julie navigate while she’s on the road, allowing her to independently visit places like the doctors, shops or the pharmacy to pick up Ash’s medicine.

But she says parking on the sidewalk has created a “daily struggle” for her.

When drivers park on the sidewalk, she often cannot fit her wheelchair through the gap between the parked car and the wall.

Maeve is also specially trained to stop if she doesn’t believe the chair can fit through the space.

Once, when Julie was trying to get around with her white cane before working with Maeve, she hit her head on a protruding wing mirror, leaving a huge bump.

An added layer of difficulty is when cars park over dropped curbs, where the sidewalk slopes toward the road. This is the only way Julie, as a wheelchair user, can safely leave the sidewalk or risk tipping herself out of the chair by falling off the raised lip.

She said: ‘I am not able to go out into the streets like other guide dog owners. It would be too dangerous because the chair would tip over. I have to turn around and find a sloping curb to get back onto the road, but then there’s the added challenge of finding a sloping curb to get back onto the sidewalk once I get to the sidewalk around the parking lot.

‘Sometimes I have to turn in the other direction for twenty minutes before I find a suitable place to get off the sidewalk. Because of my health issues, being short on time is a really big deal because I have conditions like bladder incontinence.”

Maeve is specially trained to stop if she doesn’t believe Julie’s seat will fit past a car parked on the sidewalk

Julie says that parking on the sidewalk sometimes forces her to drive back in the opposite direction for 20 minutes before she can find a suitable dropped sidewalk to cross the road and avoid vehicles blocking the sidewalk.

The difficulties of parking on the sidewalk bring Julie back to a time before Maeve and the difficulties she faced without Maeve’s help.

“I felt like my life was almost over because it was so hard to get out and about,” she says.

‘I used to drive and then my vision started to deteriorate so I had to stop, which was very disturbing. I was really getting into trouble, and as it became more and more difficult to get out, I felt like my life was almost over. One day I found it in myself to think, “I have to find a way around this.”

But since Julie partnered with Maeve, life has changed completely.

Julie says: ‘The independence and confidence I have gained since having Maeve has been enormous. But parking on the sidewalk takes me right back – I just feel like giving it up.”

She even talks about instances where she was taunted by drivers who blocked her right of way.

“I’ve had to deal with verbal abuse on a number of occasions simply because I told a driver I couldn’t pass and asked them to move off the sidewalk,” says Julie.

‘I am moved to tears by the abuse I have experienced.

‘I was so scared because I obviously couldn’t see enough to know what was going on. And when you can’t see what’s going on around you, it’s really scary. You don’t know if they’re going to attack you.

“One person I spoke to ended up driving away at such a speed and so aggressively that he almost hit an elderly man and a woman with a stroller a few yards away… I was so scared.”

For Julie, the experience of parking on the sidewalk is inhumane and made worse by the lack of community awareness.

She says: ‘Sometimes you think: what’s the point of asking for help at all, you feel difficult. You don’t expect people to yell just because you politely asked them if they could move their vehicles so you can get by. I should have the right to use the sidewalk just like anyone else.”

Julie has recounted a number of instances in which drivers have verbally abused her when she asked them to move their car off the sidewalk so she could pass in her seat.

Julie says it’s a struggle every day as drivers use the sidewalk to park

Julie wants more to be done and is working hard to raise awareness of the issue, including launching her own Facebook page to educate others about the barriers that sidewalk parking causes for visually impaired people and users of wheelchairs, like herself.

She says: ‘The problem doesn’t just stop at parking on the pavement. When you’re on the road, it doesn’t seem like people are slowing down – they’re too busy with their own travels.

“It’s terrifying to be on the road with oncoming traffic, and I always say it’s only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt.”

She adds: “Every day is a struggle just getting by, but when you have to deal with people parking on the sidewalk being extremely rude and yelling at you… I’d say it’s more real than real. .’

Julie is urging the government to change the laws around sidewalk parking and is also calling for wider community awareness of the issue.

She says: ‘Parking on the sidewalk is so selfish, inconsiderate and dangerous. The government can do more, but that just isn’t happening. It shouldn’t take so many incidents for people to realize how bad this problem is.’