…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)

I asked a lady would park outside my house all day long every weekday until 8pm to vary where she parked in my road, there is lots of space to choose from.

She got extremely offended and came one night and smashed my windscreen. A neighbour saw her but wouldn't report her for fear of retiliation.

I didn't ask her to stop parking in the road, just to vary it

OP, of course they shouldn't vandalise your car. That's criminal damage.

One tip, check it's not an access only road. We live very close to a station and have no driveways. Everyone has to park on the street but there is room for fewer cars than houses. If it was made permit we would lose half the spaces so council made it access only.

Sadly some commuters are oblivious to this and still drive into the road to park. They've even been abusive when it's politely pointed out.

Sure you're not like this but just worth checking.

It is not on to vandalise cars, absolutely no way. However, my parents live on a road nearish a station and you cannot park for love nor money between about 7am and 7pm. It's impossible to park anywhere near meaning I haven't been able to do shopping for her etc when she's been ill. And the company down the end of the road park 14 company vans in the street every evening. Visiting them is almost impossible now. My father has a car that he barely drives because he daren't move it.

I find it frustrating enough and it's not my road. It might be legal and all that but I'd be gnashing my teeth if I actually lived there. Don't underestimate how infuriating it is.

Of course it's not on to vandalise cars, but I totally understand why they are frustrated.

When I was a child we lived near the station. The piece of road directly outside our house was private, but one tosser insisted on parking there. My dad showed him the deeds, the police told him to move, but that was 'his spot'.

Up the road, where there were no restrictions, people parked there all day and the residents who lived there had to park elsewhere.

Where I used to work there was no car park so people just had to park wherever they could. I used to park on a nearby street, nowhere near anyones driveway or obstructing any access. I parked there for years with no trouble until one day I got a note on my car telling me never to park there again or else!
I was most annoyed as it was my last day at work before moving 300 miles away and it would seem that I had been intimidated by their threats.

It is not an access only road.

Since most of the houses have driveways, I'd presume that any visitors to a given house could probably park across their driveway, if there was no other alternative (as indeed people do when they visit us).

I also try to avoid parking in the same spot on consecutive days.

Similar happened to my ex who parked his car in similar circumstances to yours - his car was keyed twice, necessitating two expensive resprays. He reported it to the police, expecting them not to show much interest. But they were very interested and helpful, they didnt catch anybody - but they wanted to, they took a very full report from him so I would report it. In my exes case, his wasnt the only car to be damaged. There was bags of space where he parked, also by a fence, not blocking anyones access, it was just sheer spitefulness.

Similar situation at one of the Health Centres where I occasionally work. It's a fairly recent build so the houses were there before (and there were no yellow lines) but now there are.
There's a Staff Car Park - but only for some of the staff.

I park 10 minutes away, in a road that runs along the side of the houses, not in front.
But I've heard that people who park in neighbouring roads have their cars keyed.

The point about the limited parking was raised before it was built.......

My Mum's ndn used to moan her face off about people parking outside her house, she hardly ever had her car out of it's garage anyway but wanted the space kept free for people/family visiting her.
She was a silly old moo who would be having a fit at the amount of cars that are on the road these days.
You can hardly ever get a parking place outside there now.

YANBU, but I'm not sure what you can do to stop them damaging your car

What do you do? You report it and you keep reporting it. You have every right to park there, no matter how much it might irritate people who live locally. Them resorting to keying your car is totally unacceptable.

It's infuriating, isn't it? You are legally parked on the public highway and somebody feels they can interfere with your property and peace of mind. I wouldn't be surprised that these people feel that they are perfectly respectable even though they are engaging in very dodgy (and criminal, with keying) antics. I have been approached a number of times myself. The area outside my own house is taken a lot and I have to find another spot to park. I don't understand it. I would regard myself as nothing better than a hooligan if I started intimidating others in this way.

I have heard of dash cams. I don't know if they just record when you are driving though. Even if they do, it may not be at the correct angle to find the culprit. It is hooliganism.

They are idiots. And criminals. I hope you get a photograph. If they want to control parking then
(A) move to a development which has its own private parking
(B) move to an area which has paid for residents ' only on street parking
(C) lobby the council to introduce (B).

They won't like B or C though. Round here depending on engine size and number of cars it costs a minimum of £161 per annum for 1 small car to a maximum of £834 for 2 gas guzzlers.

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 live on a street such as the one you describe.

Except we don't have driveways because it's even closer to the town/station.

My stupid ass (but usually lovely) neighbours all have a fucking bee in their bonnet about this. It does my head in.

They've stopped at leaving notes on people's cars, but it's really not on.

We all bought houses knowing they had no off-street parking and that they were in the middle of a busy shopping town.

OF COURSE people want to park here. They're not doing any harm.

Do these people really think the world would be a more pleasant place to live (and drive. And PARK!) if you could only park on the road you live on?

And don't get me started on resident's fucking parking!

If I have to pay for the privilege of parking on the streets near my home just so other people are banned from parking there I might lose my reason entirely.

We live opposite a train station, unrestricted parking so legally anyone can use the space. Only ever got really pissed off when someone parked, went off on holiday for two weeks and their car alarm went off practically all day and all night. I phoned the non emergency police and they contacted the owner who was abroad and had no friend/spare key to move it or disable the alarm. The battery went flat eventually. I am amazed that no one chucked a brick through the bloody windscreen, then I worried if someone did then the police would think it was me as I had called to complain. I was out when they eventually moved the car but like so many people on threads like this say, you don't own the space outside your house!

People should be fined a lot of money for that kind of noise pollution.

And it should be completely fine to do whatever it takes to the car to make the infernal noise stop if the alarm goes off for more than 5 minutes or more than 3 times in one day.

Sounds like my neighbours. They had a go at a workman when he asked them to clear something and the poor sod was yelled at told that they had no responsibility / duty to the public path outside their house. Then proceeded to ask me to ask my visitors to refrain from parking outside their house. The err? Public path (no driveway/right of way outside either so I don't tend to complain when they stack up outside mine). YDNBU it's never okay to key anyone's car. I don't drive but know such things cost s fortune to fix. Would definitely get the Police involved. The only time Parking behaviour like that has riled me is when DD had an ambulance called at DMs and it had to park yards out the way because of all the people that had parked there and jumped on the commute to work in the City. I still wouldn't key someone's car over it.

I did park in a side street close to work once and came back to my car and my windscreen wipers had been broken off and flour+ eggs had been thrown over my windscreen and down the side of my car. As it was dark I didn't notice until I drove off and tried to clean my windscreen. Without wipers I was just adding water to the eggs and flour and making a really thick paste, it took ages to get it off my windscreen and I had to get my whole car resprayed as the combination stuck to my paint work

I thought it was just someone being a twat, maybe they were pissed off I was parking in 'their' street.

what a load of bollocks. I live on the first road past the CPZ so we get people parking for the station - so what? It's a public highway. And no-one on our street wants it to be in the CPZ - the council want it to but the majority of residents object every time it comes up. It's actually harder to get a parking spot on our road in the evening once the 'visitors' have left and all the residents are home.

It was very very tempting.

Our car was keyed and I have been shouted at for parking outside of someone else's house in the street behind us, but if another car is parked outside of mine then what the hell am I supposed to do? You have to stay chilled out or you will surely turn into a crazed curtain twitcher every time you hear a car pull up outside...

"It's actually harder to get a parking spot on our road in the evening once the 'visitors' have left and all the residents are home."

It's the same on our street.

But some of my genius neighbours are trying to get us resident's parking

Seriously - they want us all to have to pay hundreds of pounds a year for NOTHING.

The fucking fuckers. I will key all their cars if they succeed.

(I won't really.)

Can you not fit one of those tiny cameras that records onto an SD card ?
Place it on the headrest pointing across the inside of the car toward the kerb, or on the dashboard pointing back up the road toward the houses.
Some of them run for hours on a single charge .
Wont stop any one from scratching your car though , but you might get a picture.

Princess that's dangerous! . Thank goodness you were okay!!

We live on a road near a station, and all have driveways, people park all the way along, and I see no problem with it- as someone upthread says, any visitors can park across the driveways in any case, plus most of the driveways are big enough for 2 or 3 cars.

It does annoy me when people park over the dropped kerb though, as it's a busy road, and can be dangerous when pulling out. It doesn't happen very often though