Pavement obstruction by Charging Cable Protectors

This would be entirely consistent with "how we do it" in the UK. Essentially set up the conditions for something (Cars 2.0) but when it comes to the inevitable consequences shrug and say "nothing to do with us" (even though there are laws which cover these things).

Presumably you'd need to get some really expensive third party public liability insurance, too?

Given you have to go on a £146 course to hang baskets off lamp posts, I wonder what electrical safety testing will be required and what checks and documentation will have to be regularly done.

I can't recall which twitter thread it was in but someone mentioned the Dutch allow the use of sunken cables in the footway. But then they are a bit more advanced than us when it comes to infrastructure.

Ranty Highwayman has a blog on the subject with an image of a Dutch idea and a link to another. (Good article also):

https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-amazing-electricity-...

mattw wrote:

But then how do service providers maintain the footway?

We run servcies such as gas, water, electricity everywhere.

Never mind the back street angle-grinder wielders cutting trenches through all our paving slabs.

I might ask BicycleDutch if he can do a survey of this. I doubt that anyone has this sorted.

I can anticipate issues with water getting into the channels and freezing which will mean that they won't last very long. That also raises the question of safety issues if/when the electric cable gets damaged.

The only decent solution is to have the cables properly sunken and sealed under the pavement i.e. proper kerbside charging infrastructure.

Possible answer from chrisonabike link

A Dutch scheme which used a street reconstruction to add modular channel blocks within which to run a charging cable. As with the Oxfordshire scheme, this relies on neighbourly goodwill, but it deals with the tripping issue.

Currently Nottingham too, an acceptable compromise, electric cars may not pay fuel tax, but those of us who live in terraced properties currently typically pay between 50 and 80 pence a kWh to charge our cars at charging stations, whether local authority or commercially provided, a cost very similar or greater to the price we would pay if we were running an internal combustion engined vehicle (my Zoe does between 3.8 and 4.2 miles per kW hour depending on ambient temperature, my previous diesel averaged 11.5 miles per litre). As a cyclist I would much prefer to share my road space with modest electric vehicles, most adult cyclists also drive a car so making it easier for people to make the switch is a compromise worth putting up with a little pavement inconvenience. I rarely charge from home, I think 3 times in the six months I have owned the car, but the protector I use 15mm upstand and 90 mm wide makes the cable both obvious and considerably less a trip hazard. We live in a crowded country where a measure of tolerance for the less than perfectly personally convenient is the necessary grease for a happy life.

Robert Hardy wrote:

Currently Nottingham too, an acceptable compromise, electric cars may not pay fuel tax, but those of us who live in terraced properties currently typically pay between 50 and 80 pence a kWh to charge our cars at charging stations, whether local authority or commercially provided, a cost very similar or greater to the price we would pay if we were running an internal combustion engined vehicle (my Zoe does between 3.8 and 4.2 miles per kW hour depending on ambient temperature, my previous diesel averaged 11.5 miles per litre). As a cyclist I would much prefer to share my road space with modest electric vehicles, most adult cyclists also drive a car so making it easier for people to make the switch is a compromise worth putting up with a little pavement inconvenience. I rarely charge from home, I think 3 times in the six months I have owned the car, but the protector I use 15mm upstand and 90 mm wide makes the cable both obvious and considerably less a trip hazard. We live in a crowded country where a measure of tolerance for the less than perfectly personally convenient is the necessary grease for a happy life.

As a non-driving cyclist, I also much prefer electric vehicles, even the car-shaped ones and don't mind a bit of compromise to get people to switch.

However, putting obstructions over the pavements isn't a very workable system if we have a sizable percentage of people doing so. Where I live, there's a lot of old mining terraced housing, so the pavements would presumably have a lot of cables draped across them, though I expect that a lot of people don't get to park near their house anyway. I don't mind stepping over cable protectors, but the issue is with older folk that may be partially sited or less steady on their feet and of course there's people using wheelchairs or pushing their kids around in prams etc.

I think we should be making an effort to keep pavements clear of obstructions, but I would also consider that parking on pavements should also be prohibited.

I suspect that the eventual "solution" would be that big shops pay for and install charging stations as that almost guarantees extra footfall as drivers wait for their car to be charged up.

Compromise - in favour of the status quo e.g. the vast numbers with cars - will no doubt occur.

Not that they get much of a look-in normally anyway but you'll be aware that adding more impediments / hazards to pavements is as popular as dogpoo icecream with those with disabilities.  And in fact (because proportions of population) the largest numbers tripping up on these are likely to be ... drivers and car users without disabilities.

Plus of course as with everything "motoring" everyone will end up paying for this (either as a taxpayer or because "priorities" mean that money is spent here rather than on other things).  Including those who rarely / don't / can't drive.

It's certainly not perfection I'd hope to see, just some sign that authorities are taking note of this and seriously exploring solutions other than "just let everyone work it out for themselves".  First stop - do other places have some good ideas?

With regard to disabled people it's already difficult them because of the number of vehicles parking on pavements.   
 

It seems to me that allowing vehicles unrestricted parking sets a precedent for future footway obstacles.

There are UK councils looking at better solutions like Kerbo or ChargeArm. It'll take a while for anything to be deployed at scale though. Similarly kerbside charging solutions based on lampposts or converted BT green boxes, or community charge points.

Lamp post charging will need a huge investment in upgraded sub pavement cabling with all the associated investment in new street furniture along with all the potholes the required digging and filling will produce a few years down the line., A slightly less ideal, but vastly cheaper solution like cable channels is preferable.

So as well as motorists believing that they own the carriageway (cos Road tax, innit) and thinking they have a god-given right to store their vehicles on the road for free, they are now going to quietly colonise the tiny proportion of public space exclusively (ish) for pedestrians by leaving tiny speed bumps everywhere.

And, as hirsute says, it opens up a serious can of worms about exclusivity of the 'parking space' on the road in front of an individual's house...  Investment in far far more public charging points is surely the only answer for people who don't have their own off-road parking.

Wait - are there places near you where motorists haven't colonised the footways already?

The product blurb states:
Suitable for pedestrian areas, not vehicular traffic.

So wheelchairs and bicycles are disregarded!

Huge missed avoidance of obstruction:
Cables should be laid flat and never be extended from an upper storey to a vehicle,
nor should they be hung from any street furniture including lamp columns or trees.

It's like they never heard of telegraph poles nor the regulations on overhead power cables..