In the village in which I live, there are double yellow lines along the main road, lined with shops, running down both sides.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but I thought this meant you couldn’t stop at any time of the day or night?

In fact, I’m pretty sure the Highway Code spells that out in no uncertain terms.

I don’t think it has an asterisk pointing to permission for the local pizza store’s delivery drivers to loiter there, or, for that matter, folk simply to park there while they do their shopping.

Certainly not for people making evening visits to the charity store and not wanting to be seen dumping a load of unresaleable tat in their doorway.

But perhaps I’m mistaken. It’s happened before.

What makes it particularly frustrating, it that there are ample other parking opportunities nearby. A safe place to park and maybe one minute’s walk away. If that.

Yet, I cannot remember a single time in recent months when I’ve strolled down there and not spotted cars parked on them.

I don’t have a massive issue with someone literally dropping off a passenger for a few seconds - but at the point they’re turning off the engine and walking away, it becomes an almighty nuisance.

Why do I care? Why does the local community Facebook group get so uppity about it?

Clearly they are there for a purpose - to allow a free flow of traffic - but buses and vans and cars to navigate it trouble free. It also makes the place look dreadful - like we don’t care about it.

But, worryingly, it seems to say to everyone who goes past it ‘this is OK – we do it, so can you’.

For a pedestrian it’s not a particular problem, but if you’re driving, it means the entire road becomes a jam of cars waiting to get past them – reliant on on-coming traffic giving way.

There should be special permission granted that any car parked on double yellows can have their wing-mirrors knocked off. That would end the practice pretty swiftly.

Of course, in an ideal world, you’d have a traffic warden tasked with ticketing those who flout the laws. But an ideal world we do not live in. And council funds are already wafer-thin at the best of times. We cannot, anymore, realistically expect the laws to be enforced 24/7 however much we yearn for it.

All of which means I wish the good folk of Faversham luck in the introduction of double yellows around some of the town’s most historic buildings to tidy the place up.

A word to the wise – a fair number of motorists will probably simply ignore it.