The main issue with Clarkehouse Rd, along with other locations in the city is that motorists stop in the bike lane from 9 a.m. onwards when it is still a legitimate cycle lane until 09:30. We have monitored this over several years.

The problem really exists because this is a part-time cycle lane, a bit like a bus lane. If it were full-time it would be possible to put in physical measure to stop people parking in it. Alternatively, if the hours of operation were extended to 10 a.m. it would make it more difficult for people to stop and wait.

There are other problems – it’s worse when the cycle lane is legitimately parked on, the lanes are very narrow, motorists frequently drive in the lane. The video explains it all:

We’ve monitored it over the years – here are some findings from May 2014:

Over 40 cars abused the Cycle lane. We have the reg numbers.

We spoke to this woman and she said she drives in from Dronfield Woodhouse, doesn’t start work till 10, has a phobia about people being sick on public transport so she can’t use the train/bus (!) and there is increasing competition for this parking space so she has to get there early. Having spoken to a psychiatrist about this it appears that there is treatment available for this type of phobia.

On a further visit, May 23, there were a further 23 cars stopped on the cycle lane. Only 3 of these coincide with registration numbers from the previous session.

These were the findings from October:

Our presence definitely caused some people to decide not to stop. Some people waited in the Wetherspoons car park for 09:28. If people did this every morning we would have less of a problem.

The University is planning a Durham Rd multi-storey car park. If this happens we will  insist that there is an end to illegal obstruction in the area.

This is not just a local problem. It happens all over the country, as this report shows.

One woman came up to us and asked us to delete photos of her car from our devices. We agreed although she had no legal right to ask us to do this. When we explained who we were what we were doing she became quite sympathetic.

15th October 2013. 32 Cars stopped at 09:25. 1 car was noted to have a University of Sheffield Category C permit and several were unoccupied.

The Council says:

As you will appreciate this is one of the locations where drivers often pull up a few minutes early and sit in their cars until the clearway times have ended. If a Civil Enforcement Officer (CEO) attends, they invariably drive off and return when the CEO goes away. Camera enforcement is the best way to deal with such issues.

This is on our list of sites to be enforced with our Camera Enforcement Vehicle, but we will need to do some signing and lining improvements before that can happen (we will update the clearway times at the same time). We have this location programmed to be treated spring / summer 2014 and will commence camera enforcement after that work is completed. I have to caution that programmes can change, depending on progress with other schemes, so that must be treated as an indicative date.

Our Civil Enforcement Officers will continue to give it attention in the meantime and I will be interested to learn the results of your observations.