I have a car and can see why people may want dropped kerbs, but if you look at the big picture and how they work for your neighbours and the wider local society there are several problems with them: 1. Kerbs and their driveways concrete the local environment, reducing the local green spaces even further 2. They discourage the use of facilities such as Zip car services - one neighbour who is in the process of getting a dropped kerb told me that she had been planning to give up her car and use the zip car as she doesn't use the car very often, but given that she could get the council to put in a parking space for her she has changed her mind. 3. It is an ineffective use of resources - with no dropped kerbs it is a 'first come first served' approach to parking on the street. If a dropped kerb is in place nobody can use that slot - for example even if the owner is away on holiday for two weeks, it will remain empty whilst other locals are denied parking on their own street. 4. My kids are older now, but there are a lot of pre-school children who live on our street - they play, run along pavements and use their scooters along the pavement. With more cars driving across the pavements and pulling out from driveways unseen behind hedges the area becomes more dangerous and pavements are no longer somewhere that can be thought of as safe for children. I think for the sake of what is usually only moments or minutes of extra walk to find a space we will have ended up destroying some of the very things that encouraged many of us to choose to make our homes here in the first place. The kerbs are rapidly turning what were very pretty green south London streets with front gardens that were enjoyed by everyone into somewhere that has all the visual appeal of a car park, and created more neighbourly tension to boot. We may decide at some point that perhaps that space for your car wasn't worth it?
