It's trending, but not on #Twitter...

I pass along this street when visiting the 'Aged Ps' in Merthyr Tydfil.

It's in Galon Uchaf, up the hill towards Pant and Dowlais.

This location's an archetype for an increasing social trend - parking on the pavement; what I find interesting is the almost universal consensus adopted by local residents that they should park on the pavement with not just two but all four wheels off road.

I guess there are many reasons for it: increasing levels of car ownership; pressure on legitimate parking spaces; desire to park as close to the house as possible for convenience or to guard against theft; lack of enforcement by the authorities; failures of foresight on the part of town planners (though I once lived in the new town of Stevenage, which as a planned town actually suffered worse parking problems than many of its more organically-grown neighbours).

Perhaps there is also a fear of having a wing-mirror stripped off or worse damage caused to their car by speeding, careless motorists, or even feckless joy-riders, heedless of any damage they might do to the motor they've twocked, let alone any they might hit (I once saw joy-riders overturn one of those narrow 'dinky toy' Suzuki delivery vans outside MoD Ensleigh, in Bath. They calmly got out of the vehicle and righted it, before driving off again).

Perhaps there is also a more worthy desire not to impede the progress of fellow motorists. Although there are none at this particular location, yellow lines are normally deployed where parking would interfere with the flow of traffic. Too often these days some drivers appear to interpret them to mean "park on the pavement to avoid inconveniencing fellow motorists". But there are no yellow lines here, so that cannot be the 'reason'.

Yet this is often a selfish act without consideration for one group of road users - pedestrians.

Pavements are there for people to walk on. For many decades, speeding motorists have intimidated the old, the weak-sighted, the infirm and young children from crossing roads; now vulnerable pedestrians have to cope also with being forced into the road to avoid vehicles parked on their walk-ways.

Those especially disadvantaged are wheel-chair users and mothers pushing baby buggies, especially the wider, dual-seater, variety. I was unable to blip it because I was driving, but I witnessed an incident in Combe Down recently in which the car in front of me had to swerve to avoid a woman pushing a baby-buggy. She had been forced into the road by the selfish and inconsiderate act of a SUV driver who blocked the pavement by parking on it.

If that driver had been less attentive, or the other side of the road had been occupied by a vehicle, it might have resulted in the deaths of a mother and baby. All to save the SUV driver the potential hassle and expense of replacing a wing-mirror, or the inconvenience of taking all other road-users' needs into account by parking somewhere more appropriate.

Makes you think, doesn't it?