I drank drove (sort of) but I didn't know what else to do. There's a (not v good) diagram.

[Uriahsnose]

I drove to my local pub like I do a couple of times a week. If I am having alcohol, I leave the car there and collect it the following day.

The other night, my neighbour/friend came in, was sober and offered to drive me home in my car-he only lives around the corner. As this is safer for me than walking home I agreed.

Some houses on my street have front gardens, some have drives. I have a front garden as does one of my next door neighbours. Terraced, narrow, village one way street-parking can be a bit awkward but the houses that don't have a drive all have a designated parking space.

So my friend goes to park my car and it transpires that he doesn't know how to reverse park. He tried to drive into my parking space but the NDN with a drive's car was sticking out of their drive, and the other neighbour (in front of where my car would go) is parked outside her house. So it ended up with my car sticking out at an angle, blocking the road. I told my friend 'you'll need to reverse park, you can't leave it blocking the road'. He tried but couldn't do it-kept saying 'I can't because I can't see!' And 'will that do' (no, it wouldn't!) so in the end I told him to get out and I parked it myself.

I was so nervous-even though I wasn't drunk (I'd had three of those mini bottles of wine) and I knew I couldn't hurt anybody, but It's still illegal isn't it?

AIBU to think that if you can't reverse park, you shouldn't be driving a tonne of metal?

(Just realised I haven't accurately depicted the gardens in my diagram but the basic set up/situation is the same)!

Do you have an issue with alcohol?

A lot of what you are saying is defensive which I understand but also reminds me of an alcoholic.

You can’t say that you are scared to walk but it’s ok after you’ve had a few drinks, you have a big dog who sometimes sits in the car and it’s a longer route, can’t waste money on a taxi as it’s .2 of a mile, have to go out but don’t have friends that go out blah blah blah. It’s a load of nonsense.

Hugely useful to find out that the cumulative effect of alcohol is cancelled out if each portion you have is very small. Thank goodness for this thread, in future I shall have my Friday night bottle served in shot glasses so I can drive home afterwards. Top tip!

I have explained why I take the car three times now.

Yes, you've explained it several times and it still makes no sense. The pub is so close that it's not worth getting a taxi, 0.2 miles. But you'd rather not walk there as it's not safe. But you'll walk home, with several drinks in you when potentially it's darker and probably less safe. Makes no sense.

I think I understand the dog part -you might not be able to take the dog in if there's another dog in the pub, so you take the car so you can leave the dog in the car if needed. (Do I have that right?) Then you are walking home with the dog, so you feel safer even though it's late at night?

I don’t think that’s what ‘cumulative effect’ means. It refers to the long term effects of consuming alcohol. There was a study done a while ago into the possibility of reducing long term alcohol damage by serving it in smaller glasses and encouraging those who drink at home to do so. I don’t think it means you can split your bottle of wine into numerous shot glasses and then drive home, because it still takes the body on average one hour to metabolise a unit of alcohol.

Sorry, but this is not correct. If you are on a private road which can be accessed by the public you can be done for drink driving. And according to various police websites it’s a grey area according to circumstances at the time. They advise the public not to rely on it as a defence.

Anyway. Nothing happened. Nothing damaged, nobody hurt, no SWAT team descending on the OP. She's not planning to do it again. It's all fine.

It wasn’t in the syllabus for me, either (reversing around a corner was, so perhaps they thought that was similar)

You soon learn if you use car parks or go to the municipal tip!

Are people being purposely obtuse?

OP doesn't like to walk on her own..

She takes the car to the pub for two reason:

1. so she isn't making this part of the journey on foot
2. so she has the car there to put the dog into if there's another dog at the pub who is a problem.

She walks home with the dog - yes this is a risk but it is worth the risk to spend the evening out, and someone sometimes walk back with her.

Why are people struggling with that? and on a more pertinent note, why do people care about what OP does and feel they are entitled to an opinion on it at all?

Yes I get it now, after @MelodyMalone explained it. I wasn't being obtuse, OP didn't explain things very well. And I think we're all entitled to express an opinion regarding safety on the roads.

I do both and live where there are miles of lanes half an inch wide so do a lot of reversing, but brain-dead on parallel parking!

This is actually really rude and upsetting for me.

I didn't choose this lifestyle.

I have never been married, never had children, my friends are all over the place but nowhere near me-I have my Mum and that's it.

No, I don't have an issue with alcohol and if I did and just wanted to get drunk, I'd likely not go out-I could do that perfectly fine at home if I so chose to.

I have categorically never said that I am 'scared to walk but it is fine after a few drinks'. I have said the reason I accepted a lift is, I was offered one and it is safer than walking home at night.

I do have a large dog, for safety and companionship-what's nonsensical about that?

When I walk home yes, I take the longer route-It's safer, when I drive I can drive straight up one road, takes less than a minute- what is nonsensical about that?

It would feel silly getting a taxi yes, It's so close and the arrangement I have now works just fine for me so why would I?

I said about friends in the context that I don't have friends here that I could go out 'with'. I get on well with the regulars in the pub and have a nice time with them, but they're couples or older single men, they go earlier than me or go home earlier or later, it wouldn't work. Again, what is nonsensical about that and why would I change an arrangement that has worked well for me for the past 10 plus years?

I don't speak to anyone. I work from home in an isolating and stressful job. If I didn't go out to the gym and to the pub a couple of times a week I'd sometimes go for weeks without speaking to anyone.

You might be reading it as my being defensive but I wasn't feeling defensive at all about any of it-but on this awful post I do feel I have to defend myself here.

It really would feel silly getting a taxi. I don't feel safe walking to the pub, or back from it but I still do it because (as I've said above) I am a sociable person and I don't want to become a recluse just because women have to watch their backs at night. Often I get walked home, sometimes I don't-this particular night I was offered what I saw as the safer option and I took it. I have the option to drive there, so I do. I don't have the option to drive home, so I don't. I like my car there anyway for the dog.

I really don't understand what makes no sense about any of that.

I think your sarcasm detector may need some maintenance.

Yes, exactly. I sometimes put the dog back in the car if there's a reactive dog in the pub-It's dog friendly and it happens sometimes. Then I can have the dog with me. If I couldn't take the car I probably wouldn't take the dog-unless it was a sunny evening and I could remain outside in the garden or such. Protective breed.

I think they are. Or as I've seen people say on here 'Being thick on purpose'.

None of what you said was about safety on the roads. It was about my taking the dog and not wanting to walk there but walking back-I walk back if I've drank alcohol. I can drive there because I haven't.

Very possibly !! Didn’t dawn on me until after I posted !!

I work for the police, you can absolutely be arrested for this. You can be arrested for sitting in the drivers seat of the car with the keys in the engine without even moving. It was a stupid thing to do. What if someone was walking along that pavement where you were parking and you didn't see them because you had been drinking? Trust me, it happens.

Luckily no harm done and you know not to do it again. I'm amazed how many people on here believe it's fine to get behind a wheel whilst drunk!

Not on private property you can’t.

There isn't a pavement outside my house. But it would have been highly unlikely that someone would just decide to walk onto my parking space just as I was parking, on a narrow dark road in the middle of the night.

I don't think we've established quite what OP means by private. If the road allows public access (e.g. to visit people, or deliver things) then I believe the regular laws of the road apply.