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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

having been confronted for parking on street (no dropped kerb)

99 replies

Clawdius · 03/12/2013 12:29

Workmen are digging up gas pipes on my road. There was basically no parking available on my end of a very long road. I went up the other end and found a parking space (just). There is no dropped kerb but house owner has front wall removed and front garden paved. There is no alteration to the footpath in front of the house.

A guy came out and said would I be long because he wanted to bring his car into his 'drive'. I said I was parking there as there was no dropped kerb but I would move temporarily for him to move his car in. This wasn't taken up. He then asked where I lived and I told him other end of street. I'm sorry I even bothered with this information. He then said could I move forward. There was a legit dropped kerb where he asked me to move to. He went inside his house. He had a dressing gown on so maybe that is why he didn't come out onto the street.

A car then moved from the other side of the road. Despite knowing he was an ar**hole for using an ordinary kerb as a drive, I moved over across the road where space had been vacated. This house also has a wall removed and a beautifully paved front garden (no car on it at the moment). It has an unaltered footpath in front, so no dropped kerb again.
I parked legitimately on the road in front of this paved garden.

This has happened before. I'm now expecting some git to say I prevented them accessing their 'drive'.

AIBU to think it is really strange the way these people are operating by confronting people who are parking legitimately. I live on a very long road with loads of this paved gardens being used as legit drives. I have been confronted before even though I was not parked in front of a dropped kerb and not blocking a car parked in the front garden.

OP posts:
Original poster
Clawdius · 03/12/2013 13:24

If driving on the pavement to access this 'driveway' is an offence, I wonder if accosting people who legitimately park there is also an offence.. harassment.

And it not a zero sum. There are no cars in either of these paved front gardens. It's effectively an unofficial bagsy and they expect no one else to park in front of their garden whether occupied or not. They try to create a situation where the public space outside their house is reserved exclusively for them. If they don't have a legitimate drive with a dropped kerb, they do not have exclusive use of this space. If they want to use it as a drive, pay to drop the kerb.

OP posts:
FeisMom · 03/12/2013 13:24

Our council charges £1800 IIRC for a dropped kerb (less or more depending on how many kerb stones), so that is why a lot of people don't pay for it, but as someone has said driving on the pavement is a traffic offence.

strongandlong · 03/12/2013 13:24

What they're doing is illegal. If they want to use their front garden as a drive, they need to apply to the council to have a dropped curb installed. They'd have to pay for this. I would guess the likelyhood of getting permission, and the cost, vary depending on LA. Example costs here given as £700ish.

People being selfish and unreasonable about parking get on my nerves.

Damnautocorrect · 03/12/2013 13:25

Where I used to live the council put bollards up on the pavement where people had 'illegally' parked on their drives without dropped kerbs. I think its a planning thing. Let's face it losing front gardens does have a massive drainage and animal habitat loss.

2gorgeousboys · 03/12/2013 13:27

I must admit, I find it frustrating when people park outside my house - very small front garden, no drive etc - however it is a private road and we own that section of the road. Opposite our house is opposite a car park but people collecting from the local primary school actually seem to prefer parking outside my house.

Original poster
Clawdius · 03/12/2013 13:30

I observe dropped kerbs religiously. As someone who is legitimately using public space, it's quite objectionable to be accosted by people who are doing dodgy things. But if there are doing dodgy things in the first place they are dodgy people anyway and probably think nothing of harassing people.

And my curtesy is in question.

OP posts:
GideonKipper · 03/12/2013 13:35

We still have a front garden so not so much a drainage issue.

I think our council must be quite laissez faire about it all - there were council surveyors and workmen in our street for an unrelated paving issue some time ago and nothing was said about the kerbs.

Original poster
Clawdius · 03/12/2013 13:37

Yes, but they should pay up to create a legit drive or shut up about others parking there. That sounds raw, but captures the essence. I don't have a dropped kerb in front of my house and accept it's a parking space for anyone.

OP posts:
PostmanPatAlwaysRingsTwice · 03/12/2013 14:15

Gideon council workers out doing a particular job are not going to be interested in anything outside that immediate task. They have no initiative. You could have paraded a line of pooing poodles in front of them and they would not have given a shit (pun intended).

You do need to have a dropped kerb or you are committing an offence. See here for example from random council but it's the same rule everywhere.

I would be seriously miffed if some chancer who had paved over their front garden (which is an affront to the environment anyway) tried to stop me parking legitimately on the public road.

PrimalLass · 03/12/2013 14:16

We had a drive put in our garden but we don't have a dropped kerb.

But you don't have a drive. You have a paved garden.

buzzing · 03/12/2013 14:32

The £5,000 quote is way off the mark... We had a dropped kerb put in the cost was in the region of £170 for council application and then we had to use one of their approved contractors, of which we chose the cheapest and it was about £700.

Paths need to be reinforced to have cars driving over them otherwise you end up with broken pavements that the council need to mend.

reelingaroundthechristmastree · 03/12/2013 14:36

I thought it was illegal to drive/bump over a kerb to access a parking space.
Even if nothing is ever done about it.

ZombieMojaveWonderer · 03/12/2013 14:57

It costs between £600 & £1200 to get a dropped curb in my area which I think is pretty reasonable really. I would happily pay that if I had a front garden I could turn into a drive. Unfortunately my house doesn't have a front garden Sad I hate parking on the road.

Lweji · 03/12/2013 15:04

I thought it was illegal to drive/bump over a kerb to access a parking space.

Yes, it's illegal to drive on the kerb or park on it.

TheXxed · 03/12/2013 15:14

I was having a driving lesson earlier, I was practising parallel parking.

The home I was practising the manoeuvre in front of had a paved front garden with no dropped kerb.

An angry homeowner ran out of his home banged on the window screaming at us to move.

Sure it would be better to pay for a dropped kerb rather than stare hawkishly out the window all day.

notallytuts · 03/12/2013 16:04

i once lived in a horse with no dropped kerb and a paved over front garden. i didnt even realise for most of the tenancy that it wasnt an official driveway as although the kerb wasnt dropped it was very low anyway so it was barely a bump to drive over

some do-good-er printed off the relevant pages from the council website and shoved them through the front door. I thought whoever it was was a bit of a twat tbh, as there were never issues with parking space on the road, and lots of people parked half on the kerb anyway. if i hadnt parked on the driveway/garden then id have been narrowing the road (obviously wouldnt have parked so as to block it or make it unsafe). luckily noone ever blocked me in and i moved soon after anyway

now i live on a road where parking is an issue, i dont have a car anyway but i did have to chuckle the other day when someone blocked a car onto their driveway/garden (no dropped kerb) and the blocked driver sat there tooting his horn for about an hour.

I was tempted to go and tell him he was in the wrong, but thought I'd better not antagonise him Grin

Lweji · 03/12/2013 16:16

Did you live here? Grin

GideonKipper · 03/12/2013 18:36

Well I'm not really bothered if people want to pick me up on saying my drive is not a drive because it's got a raised kerb. The car goes on it and that's all I'm bothered about and it's worked well for the last seven years.

I don't stare out of the window checking where people park but it's never been an issue anyway. If I'm in a residential street looking to park somewhere I automatically choose a spot where it's not blocking anything - it wouldn't occur to me to check whether the kerb was raised or dropped and base a decision on that.

GideonKipper · 03/12/2013 18:37

...pick me up by saying...

CrohnicallySick · 03/12/2013 20:34

I always choose where to park based on the kerb! I look down the street, identifying which bits of raised kerb might be long enough to fit my car alongside. It's how I was taught during driving lessons. If someone had a paved front garden then I probably wouldn't even notice! (PS my brother moved into a house with a paved front garden, it was a fairly simple and not too expensive task to get the kerb dropped)

FryOneFatManic · 03/12/2013 20:59

Gideon I also base where to park on whether the kerb is dropped or not. I'd even park in front of your raised kerb if it was the only space available, because, as others have said, it's not a driveway. And completely legal.

DoYouLikeMyBaubles · 03/12/2013 21:04

I know what is and isn't legal, but I just wouldn't park there.

Twoandtwomakeschaos · 03/12/2013 21:55

Our Council specifically says not to pave a front garden before the decision on whether or not a kerb will be dropped (though, to be fair, I have seen DIY kerb-droppings rouund here and I am certain the people concerned just think they are using their initiative rather than breaking the law). A neighbour also paid for a kerb to be dropped, had a white line (i.e. "No parking") painted outside his gates then parks on it, not centrally, but (and I have seen him do this) with the door open, rolling it gently forwards till its nose is right on the edge of the white line, which has a massive knock-on effect on the rest of us trying to park in very limited spaces. Or the family with at least 4 (possibly 5) cars outside a standard Victorian terrace, who park regularly across a neighbour's drive (she is an end terrace and it runs down the side of her house) even though it is very drive like and has a genuine dropped kerb!!

GideonKipper · 04/12/2013 07:31

FryOne well you'd be the first to do so in seven years. People just don't seem to do it around these here parts.

I walked the dog yesterday and noticed that there's only about five dropped kerbs on the entire street, and it's a long street as well.

anniepanniepears · 04/12/2013 07:49

my neighbour has paved her front garden and paid for a dropped kerb but does not use it,
she parks in front of my house and I park were ever I can find a space in our busy street
My question is while she was parked at my house would it be reasonable
of me to park in front of her driveway when it is obviously empty
this option would save me a walk
I have thought about this but cant be arsed with the argument it would cause