How best to deal with a passive aggressive anonymous note.

[WouldYouLikeYourMuffinButtered]

My daughter is a new driver and the only one in our family who can drive. She needs her car to get to work as she works very unsociable hours. We rent our house and do not have access to the garage as it is rented out separately but all of our neighbours have a garage to use in the compound, however everyone of them prefers on street parking for convenience and it's a bit of a free for all.
Today an anonymous typed note was left on my daughter's windscreen telling her to 'leave space for other residents'. This partly because she does leave a bit extra space in front of her, because she doesn't have the confidence or skills yet to get out of tight spaces and is worried about clipping another car. None of this scenario is anything which couldn't be sorted by having a civil conversation, but I am really pissed off about it all.. she has nowhere else to park but neither do we need a neighbour feud. I'm interested in other driver's viewpoint.

Could she pay her driving instructor for an hour's tuition on parking next to her house? It would be worth the money.

Tell your daughter about TT. Tyre and Tarmac. When she parks, if she can see the tyres of the car in front touching the tarmac then she has enough room to move out of the space.

That is enough to reduce parking by 1 car if there are a fixed number of small spaces.

Most people will park in the same spots so she need to look and do a rough measure of where each " regular " car parks

She needs to pratice and learn where her bumbers are and how to wedge herself in and out of spaces only a little bigger than her car

Good piece of advice. Thanks

Honestly people are horrible on here about new/inexperienced drivers. In reality there are so many truly terrible drivers on the road -ones in the wrong lane, swerving, pulling out into traffic, speeding etc, that being cautious over space seems very mild in comparison.

Her confidence will grow in time, but she should know that she is by far not the worst driver around. Maybe p plates would help her feel less self conscious, and may help others make allowances.

I live on a road with on street parking. I often have to park twenty or thirty houses away from my own house which is a nightmare when I had a buggy and shopping ;and not great now just with shopping). It use to drive me crazy to see cars parked across effectively two spaces.

She just needs to learn how to park considerately that’s all.

Sounds like she needs a lesson on how to park.

As a lifelong non driver ( I get free public transport for work, I cycle everywhere else and am happy to admit being a bit niche in this respect) I just see the road outside our houses as just that...a bit of communal tarmac, especially as there are garages for all our neighbours behind all the houses on both sides ( apart from ours, otherwise we'd use it). Its not an especially busy road, but clearly there are unspoken ' rules'. Thanks for all the points of view and advice, every day is a school day!

I don't see what the difference between renting and owning has to do with anything.
She literally explains what it has to do with anything in the sentence after that one. She has explained that the garage is let out to someone else. Going out on a limb, and maybe doing some thinking, what relevance do you think that might possibly have to a parking thread @Longtimeloiterer ?

I learned how to drive later in life and parking has always been my horror I won’t lie (after multi-lame roundabouts).

Im presuming from this situation that your daughters car doesn’t have any sort of parking sensors? They really give me much better confidence in parking and moving off from on street parking/tight spaces. You can buy them for any car, I would advise investing in some on top of practice!

OP it's entirely possible that she isn't causing a problem but that there's one crotchety twat on your street who has to piss on their territory when they see a new car, especially the fact they've said "residents" in the note, it seems to me that they're implying she doesn't live here and therefore should go away.

It is also possible that she is causing a problem and needs practice. The rest of this post is in case that's what's happening here. When I was learning to drive, I was told to use the car in front's wheels as a reference point. When they seemed to touch the bottom of my windscreen, that was "parked". However with experience I pull a bit more forward now.

She doesn't need more lessons, that's a total waste of money as she won't have a driving instructor sitting in the car with her in real life telling her when to steer/pull in etc and actually parallel parking doesn't seem to be her issue, just her positioning when she turns off the engine.

I would suggest she parks then pulls forward a little bit more (maybe start with a foot). When she comes to pull out, she should be reversing a bit first (into the space left by the car behind her for them to get out), not just driving straight out, as there typically isn't enough room in on-street parking to do this. Getting better at parking opens up a lot more parking spaces to her so it's worth getting it nailed if it's a problem atm!

Sound advice, thanks

It's on street parking, ignore it, she will gain confidence with practice. The note writer is being an idiot, if she parked too close, he would be leaving notes about that. He/she is not the parking police.

No matter what she'd done, an anonymous note isn't 'fine'. The only value it has, is that the writer is a twat.

Tell your daughter to ignore the note & to park exactly as she needs to . If it bothers people that much then they should have the guts to speak to her face to face - it really annoys me when people have no patience with new drivers & leaving anonymous notes is particularly nasty & cowardly

Jeez. Can't believe the majority of the posts. Heh, they're all perfect drivers. I doubt.

Leave a note on everyone else's windscreen telling the anonymous person that she'll happily leave less space when she parks if they are happy to risk their cars getting bumped while she gains her confidence. Or ignore and she does what she needs to do to be safe and confident.

The road belongs to nobody. They can park elsewhere if they don't like it.

Most people have to build their confidence about something as new drivers. Based on what I see on the road, 95% of them never improve anyway!

I reckon that all the neighbours had got used to your family not having a car, and had divvied up all the spaces between themselves, and had formed some sort of 'Fred parks there, I park here' system. Your dd's car has thrown a spanner into their works, and one extra car has fouled up their system.

Might be worth telling the person who rents your garage that you will be wanting it back in due course.

How do you respond to the note? You ignore it. In time she will grow in confidence, especially if she is driving regularly for work.

Sadly taking over the garage isn't an option. Our landlord rents it out separately to someone else.

This!

I find it really irritating when people leave loads of space when parking......however, I'd never be so annoyed-or cowardly!-enough to leave an anonymous note on their windscreen.
OP, you say your daughter is a "new driver" but how new is she? It took me a good few months after passing my test before I felt confident enough to reverse into parking spaces/parallel park etc. The only way to learn, is to actually do it, so as nervous as your DD is, she really needs to practice any manoeuvres she's anxious about, so, for example, I'd encourage her, over the course of a few days, to decrease the distance she leaves between her car and the vehicle in front so she gets used to pulling out of tight spaces and eventually, she'll become more aware of how much (or how little!) space she really needs to leave when parking.

Honestly I think the note was fine. We have this issue where I live and it is annoying as there is more cars than houses. The extra space your daughter has used probably means she is parking over two possible spaces.

I do sympathise as I passed my test and has to use on street parking. She will soon work out how much space she needs. Just tell her to take it slow with small considered steering movements. Before she knows she will be a pro!

My Dad hammered parking into us as teens, pre-parking sensors and with the spare tyre blocking the back window, should be a compulsory part of the test but now I can squeeze a large car in a small space.

*obviously now I’ve boasted about this I will probably scape my car tomorrow trying to park at work 😆

Serious question - if you dont know whose car it is, what do you do except write a note if there is a problem? I mean, there’s no point in writing “kind regards, June and Phil” as you don’t know if they know who you are. And you’re hardly going to hang around to tell them in person - they could be hours!

A diagram would help.

But I would suggest if cars are all driving in front to tail she parks at the back as far as she can get back so she just needs to reverse out when she needs to leave.