…to consider it bang out of order for people to start mucking about with my car just because they don’t like me parking on their road?

[jfh]

I have to drive to our local station to commute to work (the bus service is truly rubbish). I don’t want pay for the station car park as its half the price of my season ticket again. So I park about 10 mins walk away on a side street. It’s a public highway, with no restrictions. I park on a stretch which runs alongside a fence, so I don’t block anyone’s driveway. I make sure I don’t jam anyone in front or behind me in so they can’t get out. I don’t obstruct the road. Pretty much every house on the road has its own drive. Yet people are taking offence at me and my car – it’s been keyed, and some scrote stuck labels over the glass telling me not to use their road as a station car park.

I’ve now taken to having my iphone at the ready to take a snap of whoever is going to have the balls to actually start having a go to my face, just so I can get plod to pay them a visit on suspicion of criminal damage.

WTF is wrong with some people? (and no, I couldn’t give a sh1t if they did the same in my road…it’s a public highway and no one has the right to park outside their own house)

Of course they shouldn't vandalise your car

YANBU but short of hiding behind a tree with a camera, I'm not sure what you can do about it. HAve you tried speaking to the police about it - itis criminal damage and they may be able to help.

Well they shouldn't vandalize your car, but I understand the frustration of some residents who feel aggrieved at their street being used as free car parking for commuters. However, most of the home owners getting frothy would have been well aware of the proximity of the street to the station- it may have been one of the things that attracted them to the property in the first place.

As long as you're parked safely and considerately, YANBU.

This won't go well. I put a thread up about school parking some twat was putting bins in the street to stop people parking I was parking perfectly legally but everyone was on his side.

I'd report it, someone may have caught it on CCTV installed on their homes or even CCTV in the street.

Ciminal Damage is criminal damage, they have no right and you have every right to park where you can as long as you are meeting all the requirement at your end ie, safe parking, taxed and insured etc.

If they object to commuters parking in their street, they should be lobbying the council to make it permit only, not keying people's cars.

Criminal damage is just that; criminal, and needs to be reported as obviously it isn't right, but I can understand peoples' frustration. We live around the corner from the jobcentre and on a Monday it is impossible to park, as everyone parks on our street - blocking driveways and making it impossible for us to park - to go there, and then they'll often carry on into town because we live close to the town centre, meaning when we get back from uni we can't park anywhere. I'm pregnant and have SPD, making it almost impossible to walk to and from uni as well as doing a full day there, and the jobcentre has a car park but it is almost always empty because you have to pay to park on it.

It isn't on for them to damage your car, but I will hold my hands up and admit that I've just bought a pack of fake penalty notices to stick on any cars that block driveways (not the ones that park legally as, although it's annoying I realise that they have every annoying right to park there), to maybe make them realise that they're blocking people in or out.

They shouldn't be touching your car, no, but I understand their frustration. We used to live near to a hospital and our road was used as a free car park.
Are you parked within 10metres of a junction?

our road is like that for parking but I wouldn't dream of doing that to someone's car. criminal.

No YANBU. I lived near a railway station and my road was used as a free carpark, and we had to battle it out with everyone else for parking, so we asked the council to make it permit parking only which they did eventually. I never felt the need to vandalise someone's car.

I get this as well. My house has double yellow lines outside on the road for about 200 yards and there's only room for one car (usually DH's) in the drive. I occasionally have to park in a nearby cul de sac in front of someone's house but all the properties there have driveways and garages so they don't need to park on the road.

I've had so many notes asking me to move my car such as 'stopping their visitors parking in front of their house'; 'we'll call the police if you dont move your car' and even 'the elderly residents can't manoeuvre round your car!" I've never had anyone damage my car though - even so I'm tempted to have a word with the local police - particularly as I'm worried that someone who can't manoeuvre around my car on a straight road should be driving!

It's particularly annoying since I thought that if you park legally and pay your road tax you could park where you wanted.
So - YANBU - there's some miserable buggers out there!

yanbu. people park on our estate and walk to the station. as long as they dont block anyone nobody cares. there are various parking restrictions to a point but as soon as these stop, people park. parking is something like £30 a week so i really don't blame them at all.

don't know what you can do though?

i also cant understand people buying a house near a station (railway will have been there before cars were invented) and then suddenly taking offence at people parking in the street. We call it Wembley syndrome in our house(after being caught up in a protest by some residents of Wembley complaining about, ermm the noise caused by the Stadium)

I understand the frustration of some residents who feel aggrieved at >their street being used as free car parking for commuters

But why? If people park legally what is the problem? Regarding residents, it isn't 'their' street, it is public space for which car owners have paid through road tax. People should keep this in mind when they decide to live on a particular street.

As long as your vehicle is taxed and whatnot you can park anywhere (legally and safely) you like... BUT I do understand the frustrations of the residents. People use my road to get the bus into town (we're one of the only roads in the area without a CPZ) and to drop off their kids at the school the other end of the road. They are very often abusive while doing so (how very dare I park near my house!). We have campaigned for a CPZ but the council are dragging their heels and the school is against it because of not enough staff parking - though they have recently rebuilt and there are far more spaces, so hopefully that's going to become a non-issue. Either way, the council keep telling us there's no budget for it and the road gets busier year on year.

Never would I ever damage someone else's car but it's a very familiar frustration and I have put notes under windscreens to ask people not to park so bloody close to my bumper as I need access to my boot. To be quite honest I would budget for the car park, if I were you.

Thanks for all the comments people!

The most frustrating thing about all this nonsense is that what is getting people riled in my case (and probably many others) is not that I am being a nuisance (which I'm not), but some sense of perverse moral outrage that people have dared to park on "their street", to which they think they have some entitlement over anybody else who uses it.

I bet the station was there before the people moved in.

You need to be pragmatic, is it cheaper to keep repairing you car or to pay for parking?
There is an argument for saying that as a parking facility has been provided, you should use it.
I agree that the overall solution is a CPZ.

I used to live equi-distant between two train stations and although we had a driveway, it wasn't particularly long and we had double yellow right at the front (aimed at stopping people parking on both sides of the road for the station). The road was particularly well policed by the local traffic wardens at certain times of the day (local school round the corner as well, plenty of illegally parked cars!). The other side of the road was used for station parking and I'm sorry to say but it's incredibly frustrating. You can't see to get in and out (and I don't care how well you think you're parking, if you've not had to get in and out of the driveways, you can't possibly know what you are/aren't blocking) and it's particularly frustrating when you've got friends round as they're having to park 10 minutes walk away because there's no room in your street (let alone near to your house!).

I accept I chose to live there and that I chose to live there because I wanted good access to one of the stations so I always knew that there would be a lot of traffic in the area. But it was still frustrating and I feel for the residents in your situation (not that it excuses keying the car etc. although of course, you have no evidence it was one of them - anyone walking past could have done it, couldn't they?)

YANBU, I'd report the criminal damage to the police.

Because it's not just the OP who chooses to leave her car there. It's probably tens of commuters who just leave their vehicles for 8, 9,10 hours, more than likely congesting the street so much it's difficult to manoeuvre, blocking driveways, mounting kerbs, boxing residents in. It's a bit different to those "eccentric" neighbours MN'ers post about who save spaces for visitors who never arrive.

It would get in my tits, but that's why I wouldn't live that close to a station. And still no excuse for damaging other peoples' property.

We were camping in the Purbeck hills this summer and went to an isolated country pub where parking is very limited, I parked in a residential close where there were no restrictions and was not blocking anyone.
When we got back to the car from the pub someone charmer had written 'CUNT' in the dust on my back window, it was very visible because of the bright sunshine and our friend who spotted it first wiped it off quickly because he had his two young sons with him.
We stared round at the bungalows to try and see who's curtains were twitching but couldn't spot them!
BTW, the car was very dirty from driving over very dry dusty fields. and I would have screen washed them before driving off

And so what if they don't like people parking on 'their' street, they don't own the street, they just happen to live on it.

As someone who doesn't drive, I always assumed any street is effectively a free car park. It's only on MN that I discovered people get offended at that.

OP, YANBU.

yanbu its like people who live near schools moaning about parking.