How can this be allowed?

Are you usually so snarky and unreasonable? Hardly any cars have spare tyres these days and it's been that way for at least the last two years. It wasn't as if they were having a full MOT done in their driveway, it was a brief emergency call out service. It takes about 30 minutes and it's not 30 minutes of continual noise. Why do I get the sense that you're one of these people who leaves notes on ambulances that are double parked when responding to an emergency?

Nah. Paddington isn't a complete twat.

he'd be making a round of marmalade sandwiches & a pot of tea!!

I lived in Austria for a while, where they seemed to have a similar efficient ethic.

They would do essential road repairs overnight, rather than close off the roads in the daytime when everybody is trying to get to work and school and go about their business. They'd send in a load of workmen with all the equipment and floodlights and they'd get right on with it and get the job done properly and then re-open the road ready for the morning.

Very unlike the UK, where we cone off the area and put up loads of signs for weeks or months on end, and if Bill Oddie comes along and sits there for long enough with his binoculars, he might actually be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a Lesser Spotted Workman.

Rather than annoying the neighbours with the noise of an emergency tyre change/repair, this poor motorist passing through should instead have parked up in the street overnight, until it was a reasonable, respectable hour to call out the tyre man... and then annoyed the neighbours when they woke to discover somebody who isn't a resident was parked in (or "had abandoned their car", as the drama usually goes) in 'THEIR SPACE'

Have you had a flat tyre? Many cars either don't have a spare at all or have a space saving wheel which will just get you to a garage at a really slow speed. Not much use if the neighbour has to be somewhere in the morning.

Yes OP YABU.

YABU - it was a one off

I feel like if its one time then YABU but if its a regular thing then yes very annoying.

Some things are unavoidable, and when a tyres goes, it goes, and has to be changed where it is. However, I would have been really annoyed at the gratuitous use of the loud noisy engine when it wasn’t being used, as you describe OP.

Then there would have been complaints about random
cars parked on the road. Perhaps the person needs the car for work in the morning? If I had a flat late at night I’d have to get it done immediately as I no longer have a spare (as most cars don’t nowadays) and I need my car for work.

Yep, storm in a teacup. Chalk it up and move on.

Local noise laws are generally for repeated out-of-hours noise, not for one-off emergency works.

One time my toilet was completely blocked, I called a man to come and jet the drain outside, he turned up at 10pm and put the motor/generator/whatever it was on. I was embarrassed as it was really loud but I was so grateful he could come that day and I would be able to stop pooping in a bucket. If you need something done urgently and that’s the time someone can come, it’s not ideal but it’s amazing people work that late to help others.

As a one-off I wouldn’t get annoyed about this - fixing a tyre/car so someone can get to work is more important than my drain. For all I know my neighbours get up at 4am and have to drive hours to work to do something important. But if it’s happening all the time then yes I would be annoyed

What reason did she have to be pissed off?

Nothing affected her. She wasnt asleep or in bed or woken up. She was awake already and then standing outside like a lunatic staring at what was happening.

Her complaints are a complete fuckingnothingburger - especially considering the OP says shes not a driver too.

So WTF gives her the right to complain?

OP has rightly been called out on this thread as is fucking deserved.

Once in a blue moon is fine. We had a fleet of fire engines here one night going for a few hours from about 2-4, using the hydrants, resonating the water pipes. Did I moan? No. We live close to a main road and are frequently a dumping ground for broken down vehicles. That doesn't really bother me. I even helped hacksaw off someone's exhaust. What does bother me is neighbours doing their van conversions 3 metres from the house at 11pm. People pumping their tunes as they pull up. Slamming car doors. Revving their engines in the cold at 4am. Banging their front and back doors. Letting their dogs bark away at 1am... As for some sap trying to get home last thing at night who has broken down, I'll have a little empathy.

Fair play to OP totally pissed off with situation asked advice told she was being unreasonable held her hands up and said she was

Do you need to drive to understand that a puncture would be an “emergency” for someone needing to get somewhere and that you can’t drive on a flat tyre? The fact it was a man rather than a single woman doesn’t mean he can magically repair tyres 😂

You’re right! You have become THAT neighbour.

Noise, annoying, but a once off, rare occasion, move on!

If it was an every day deal, that would be different. You definitely should have just stayed inside, twitching your own curtain.

Some people really struggle to realise that while some situations are, yes, very annoying and even infuriating, they don't warrant any response beyond a bit of cursing in your own head or maybe to your partner. They don't need someone to Do Something about them and they don't need you to See The Manager and they don't need to be banned, because this is life and sometimes unavoidable, annoying things happen.

I know MN hates the term Karen but this is precisely the kind of behaviour it was coined to describe originally. Feel free to suggest an alternative but it's a very specific kind of overreaction.

I only hope OP none of your neighbours have reason to call an ambulance in the middle of the night, you will be put out with a siren and flashing lights won't you.

I do hope you can recover from your awful ordeal.

I suggest a lie down in a darkened room in order to recover from your long hard stare at a man trying to help another man out with an emergency.

Annoying? Of course!
were you out of order? Also of course. It was a one off emergency for a few mins. You were extremely passive aggressive.

Most new cars nowadays do not carry a spare wheel as standard. A car cannot drive on 3 wheels. If a tyre is flat, to drive on it would damage the wheel, which would cost hundreds of pounds to replace. Yes, of course it is an emergency situation.

You would hate to live where I do. Regularly at 2am they work on the train tracks with loud machines. It's not the noise from the machines that annoys me it's the loud talking that's not related to their work.

Annoying, but sounds like a one off.

This sounds like an emergency tyre repair/change that wasn’t planned and isn’t recurring. And it only took 15 mins. And the vehicle was probably needed for work the next morning.

I have actually had the exact thing done myself - puncture one evening, car needed very urgently the next day. Emergency mobile tyre repair called out and arrived after a couple of hours waiting - around 11pm.

I suppose if you have an emergency, it’s different, is it? Going out and staring was pure Karen.