Parking issue with commercial van - feeling anxious

[Bitofapickle22]

So I live in a quiet residential street. We all have driveways so no issues parking. About a week ago a large commercial lorry started parking in the street. It is huge. One of my neighbours saw the driver park it and then walk off to a street a few minutes away. I’m assuming he can’t or doesn’t want to park in his street so parks it in mine.

When it parks opposite my driveway it makes it harder to reverse in and yes to be honest staring out my lounge window at a huge van is an eyesore and I hate it. I shut the blinds but it’s bloody annoying.

Yesterday we had to help my neighbour out his drive as he couldn’t see round it.

I rang the company and politely asked if the driver could park more considerately. The bloke on the phone said the driver had moved to the area and would now be parking in my street and there’s nothing I could do about it. I explained about blocking driveways making it difficult to get in and out. He didn’t care. Said it’s taxed and insured and we’d have to get used to it. Said he’s known the driver 30 years and he is a “family man”.

Again today I hear it parking up opposite, the loud reversing noise. My DD who is 13 and off school sick looked out the window and the driver saw, came over to our house and started waving up at her. I am now thinking he’s obviously been told that I’ve complained and this is the start of some sort of personal vendetta.

I am a single parent and am now worrying what this bloke is going to do? I shouldn’t have rung. I’m so anxious about this. I just want a quiet life and now not only do I have to deal with this lorry 7 days a week and trying to get round it but the driver and the company know where I live.

Trying not to catastrophise but I have so much other stressful stuff going on that it feels like I’m spiralling.

Sorry but that’s ridiculous. There are vans parked all over residential streets every day, people aren’t crashing their cars every time they try to pull out of their driveway. It’s not that hard. It really sounds like OP and the other people in the street just want to act like they own it.

You live on a street with unrestricted parking then people are going to park. Get used to it.

I am doing the OP the courtesy of believing her post, that the neighbours are finding it hard to navigate the van. If you don’t believe her post, you know where the report button is.

And if the residents of the road choose to park on the street, then it is the van driver who will have to suck it up and park elsewhere.

Of course vans come and go on streets - OP isn’t talking about a delivery van parked for 10 mins or a gardener coming once a fortnight for a couple of hours. She is talking about a van parked repeatedly and for long stretches on a road where its driver doesn’t reside.

United front with neighbours is the only way forward. If no one parks on their drives for a few evenings, and there's no space, he'll find another street.

I would speak to the other neighbours to ensure that someone is always parked in the space. If cars are parked up, work together to ensure that any free spaces are a little too small for the lorry to fit into (but still big enough for a standard car). The driver will hopefully give up if the space is not available.

If it’s over 7.5 tonnes you can take action as a previous poster pointed out. But unfortunately lorries below this limit can still be quite large!

I’m assuming op has checked and van is under 7.5 tonne, hence why she’s not answering the is it lorry or van question. 4 hours plus is long enough to have looked it up!

Park in the space. Simple

Is it a long wheel base van OP?

First: what does “family man” even mean? Probs driving his lorry all hours so in reality it means “man who’s married to a woman who does the grunt work to keep the family running”.

Second: Assuming all parties manage to agree on the definition of “family man”, why is it relevant to the dispute?

@Bitofapickle22I am a lawyer and I fucking hate this kind of ubiquitous male entitlement, both from the driver on the ground and the company on the phone. DM me: together (armed with helpful posts from PPs, in particular @Badbadbunny) we will wipe the floor with them.

There have been threads where it was suggested to buy an old cheap car, tax it and leave it in the space permanently. Just saying ...

Yeh, which is rubbish advice in my eyes. Who has a spare £500+ to spend on a car, mot, road tax, insurance?

I’d follow him home, see where he actually lives. Is it really streets away? I genuinely can’t see anyone parking and walking a few streets away?

I can - if he's done this in other streets and been given short shrift by residents there he's probably having to move his truck further away.

There's what's legal and what's right.

Someone at work complained about a minibus being parked on their road blocking their view (as in, to get out of their driveway). They complained to the business who said it's parked legally. They then took it to the local groups and the business got a backlash so moved it round the corner outside no-one's house blocking no one's view. Bloody wish they'd done that to start with!

I think neighbours all taking it in turns to park there shows it's not just you. I'd help you out if I was your neighbour.

We definitely need to know how big this truck/van/lorry actually is 🤔

Regardless, he should be parking the thing in his own street. He can piss off his neighbours instead.

Agree completely. Which is why I said I’d follow him. But if there’s that can actually be done depending on the size of the van, then we need to know 😁😁

Maybe she’s out??

If you own a van park it on or outside your own property. If you don’t have space move somewhere that you do.

This is classic male entitlement.

The law doesn't work like that. And that's a very sexist comment.

Is it a van or a lorry??

We have this on our street. A man who lives two streets away parks two of his vans here (often not moving for weeks at a time) he’s perfectly legally entitled but it’s a shitty thing to do. He blocks the road, the light, makes it harder for people living here to park and drive on their own road.

My elderly neighbour throws handfuls of birdseed on top of them so they he covered in bird poo

Op has said it’s a man x 2

How on earth is someone parking in a public parking spot "classic male entitlement"??

"I am a single parent and am now worrying what this bloke is going to do?"

He's likely just going to keep parking there, or nearby, where ever he can get a spot. There's nothing to suggest he's some psychopath that's going to start attacking you.
Just park your car there if you want.

yes to be honest staring out my lounge window at a huge van is an eyesore and I hate it. I shut the blinds but it’s bloody annoying.

This is absolutely pathetic.

It’s ridiculous that you have to actually shut your blinds because there is a van parked opposite your house.

Honestly if you’re this dramatic about it being an eyesore and worried he’s going to ‘retaliate’, then I can imagine you are over exaggerating about getting in and out of your driveway.

He has every right to be there and his feathers have obviously been ruffled because you spoke to his employer, which could have gotten him in shit, instead of directly speaking to him.

I don’t think you and the neighbours parking in that space is going to help and he’ll just park it slightly further down the road opposite someone else’s.

Stop being a drama llama, if you are struggling to get it in and out of your drive just go and have a chat with him.

The vast majority of commercial drivers and transport managers know that a 7.5T+ will bring grief if parked on a street, and wouldn't dream of endorsing it. There are lots of entitled home owners that see it as "their street". A great number of 3.5T to 7.5T vehicles, such as a LWB transit or a Luton van, can be absolutely enormous now. I think it's likely legally parked on a public street. Driver is unlikely to be aggressive, more likely just trying to do his job, and find a reasonable place to leave the van for the night after a long day of driving, with an early start the next day.