WIBU to remove the sign from the car parked outside my house?

[JoinYourPlayfellows]

OK, so I live in a town on a street with public parking. Most of the houses (including mine) do not have off-street parking.

BACKGROUND:
Recently my neighbours have started campaigning for "resident parking", because they are pissed off that people who work in the town, or come to go shopping, park on our street and they can't park near their houses.

I don't support this campaign, because as far as I can see, the busiest time when it is hardest to get parking on our street is on Sunday evening. This is when everyone is at home. The problem is not with OUTSIDERS having the temerity to park on a public road, it's that there is not enough parking for the people who live on our street.

I have never voiced my lack of support for this campaign, but I haven't put a sign in my window about it.

THE ISSUE AT HAND
Yesterday evening when I was on my way home from work I saw that someone had put a polypocket with a Residents Parking Please sign inside it under the windscreen wipers of the car parked outside my house.

Now this crosses a line for me. I think it is intimidation to start flyering people's cars like that because they (totally legally) park on our street.

I am pretty pissed off about this, particularly as it was done to the car directly outside my house, because I think it implicates me in the message being given to the driver of the car - namely that he shouldn't have parked there.

So I removed the sign. What do you think? Was I right to do that? I'm pretty pissed off about this whole thing.

Parking used to be a tiny pain in the arse that was dealt with civilly by all of us. Now it's turning into this really fraught, annoying issue that people are getting really angry about. (Including me at this point.)

Sadly OP your very reasonable attitude of "of course people park here it's near town" is often not shared by others.

People hate sharing "their" space, even when it clearly isn't "theirs"

This is at the root of most school parking rows too!

(Our local council has put charges on the free carpark making the main road in chaos with cars each side, so here the idiots are definitely not helping).

as far as i know (in scotland) it is illegal to do put leaflets on people's cars without a license, under anti-social behaviour regulations.

it is also possible that doing so is an offence under the traffic signs regulations whereby only roads authorities are permitted to issue/erect signage containing sinstruction pertaining to public roads.

as a public road, anyone is entitled tp park, there, provided they are doing so legally. if you want to restrict access to your road, apply to your local authority to "un-adopt" it and take on the responsibility for maintaining it yourself...then you can control the parking!

I would have also removed the notice or, possibly, just added my own one to tell the car owner that the note wasn't from me!

I would also be worried that the car owner would think it was me and would specifically target the parking space in front my house.

They do this is my road as we live next to a secondary school, the biggest complainers and campaigners are those who like myself choose the area for the school and drive the DC to the local primary blocking someone else road. Unless you never park outside someone else's house you loose your right to complain to other driver just complain to the council. I would of removed the sign, as I would not want any Tom,dick or harry knocking on my door about a sign I had nothing to do with.

You did the right thing.

I also live near a town so people park near me to go to work. I couldn't park in my usual car park so parked in the next one along. Next morning I found an overly polite note on my car asking me to contact one of the neighbours who backs on to that car park. I didn't as I knew she would tell me it was a residents only car park, which it isn't. Now I park there sometimes because I am petty .

You don't want to start a parking war so remove any notices that are left on cars outside your house.

Join, I'm fuming. There are also restrictions on how many permits each household can apply for (think it's a max of 2), so if you're living with extended family, in a houseshare, have DCs who are old enough to drive, etc you have to pay for guest permits which are stupidly expensive.

YANBU. I posted this on the other current parking thread.
My 17 year old DS newly passed test took my car to college. Much thought went into where he should park as he didn't have a car park pass. I explained that some people are a bit territorial about parking and suggested a spot which was legal,not in front of any drive, nor opposite, nor in anyone's way at all. There are never any cars parked on this street because they have big front gardens with drives.
He got a snarky note on the windscreen telling him to park elsewhere.
He daren't park anywhere now.