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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

…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?

147 replies

jfh · 03/01/2014 16:43

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)

OP posts:

lljkk · 03/01/2014 21:04

mmm... I would park elsewhere. Or cycle/walk to the station instead. Forget morality, I'd want to protect my car! They're obviously sick of station parkers & probably have failed to persuade council to put in parking restrictions.

PrincessFlirtyPants · 03/01/2014 21:06

It was, Misspixietrix. The side street backs onto a main road, which I had driven straight onto. I had to stick my head out of the window so I could see and then pull into a side street to try and clear it off. It took me about an hour to clean it!

peggyundercrackers · 03/01/2014 21:08

buy a dash cam and hide it(in a bag on the back seat?) pointing at the windows and see if it captures anyone doing it or buy one of the little spy pen cams or one of the other spy cams that only record when there is movement and leave that recordign in the car pointing at the windscreen. once you have evidence you can go to police.

Pipbin · 03/01/2014 21:10

Caitlin Your council charges well over the odd for parking.
I've just moved from a house where we lived for 10 years with permit parking. We paid £30 a year per car. That also got us a free one hour pass for visitors. If we had visitors who wanted to park for longer then we could buy day passes for £1 a time. We lived there for 10 years but the price never went up.

In my opinion OP YANBU. However, where I used to live, we were only a street away from a theatre. I remember getting home one night after visiting friends and not being able to park anywhere within walking distance of my house, not even on single yellow lines. I had to sit in my car on double yellows and wait for the thing at the theatre to finish and everyone who had parked in our street to fuck off. However this sounds very different to the street you are parking in where everyone has got drives. We now have a house with parking and I am so much less stressed.

That said I am a complete hypocrite and park in my old street on a Sunday when the permits don't count and go shopping.

Caitlin17 · 03/01/2014 21:21

Pipbin(love the name !) Edinburgh inner zones 1-4. Most expensive outside City of Westminster apparently.

LaydeeC · 03/01/2014 21:22

What I cannot understand about the mindsets of people who object to others parking in 'their' road, is where the hell do they park their cars when they go out to visit or to do shopping
My mil fell out with her neighbours (proper falling out) because they had the temerity to move the bins that she had put in the street to stop other residents parking there (cpz). She was most put out that they moved them and remonstrated with them about it - they, quite rightly, told her where to go and she never spoke to them again.
It is crazy - I live in a cpz and it is worse in the evening when everyone is at home and empty during the day when no-one can park there.
If someone buys a house near a station or a hospital with unrestricted parking, how on earth can you object if someone wants to actually, er, park there?

Caitlin17 · 03/01/2014 21:24

OP just thought during the last really bad winter some people had covers which went over their cars (I think I'm not imagining that) Could you get one?

LadyIsabellasHollyWreath · 03/01/2014 21:25

The moral of the story is "always keep the notes to give the cops". And consider a dashboard cam.

BrianTheMole · 03/01/2014 21:30

I used to park in the cul de sac next to where I lived as my house was on a one way narrow country lane, so no room to park outside. In the 2 years I lived there my car was keyed over 20 times, and cowardly notes written in capitals were left on my car, telling me not to park there. All different hand writing. I am convinced nearly all the residents were in cahoots. If I had parked outside my own house they would have been trapped, as my street was the only street out on to the main road. I got my revenge when I moved as the removal truck had to block the road for an hour. . The hooting of the horns and verbal abuse was music to my ears. . Fuckers. But it cost me the best part of £1000 to get the car resprayed when I finally moved. I didn't bother whilst I was living there as I knew someone would be along to key it again. Some people are just territorial twats.

Pipbin · 03/01/2014 21:36

Thanks Caitlin. The price makes a little more sense now but if my council can operate a CPZ for £30 a shot then surely so can yours. Even when I lived in Brighton it was only about £40 a car. And Guildford was much the same.

ElkTheory · 03/01/2014 22:05

YADNBU. It is utterly ridiculous for people to think they are the only ones allowed to park on a public road just because they live there. First come, first served. The road is not their private property. What a misplaced sense of entitlement.

And I would report any damage to the police, though sadly it is unlikely that anything can be done about it (unless you catch the vandals in the act).

amiok · 03/01/2014 22:58

Either it's legal to park there or it's not.

If it's legal YABU

If it's not YANBU

HTH

LadyCelia · 03/01/2014 23:20

YANBU OP. It sounds like our road - our NDN comes out in his pyjamas anytime from 7am waving his copy of the Daily Fail shouting if anyone parks outside his house (he has a double driveway, double garage & room for 3 cars on the road outside, but hey, maybe all of his friends might turn up in separate cars one day & need to park within a 30 second walk).

We have lots of commuters parking on our road, but that's just par for the course if you're near a station, why on earth do the rail companies have to charge so much again for the car parks?! The only time it bugs me is if they park right up against your driveway making you do a 10 point turn to reverse out.

re the dash cams - I think you have to put a notice in the car as well stating that you have one & it may be recording, I've noticed that recently on a very large car which parks on the main road nearby & obviously gets its wing mirrors knocked off on a regular basis.

edamsavestheday · 03/01/2014 23:28

I used to be relaxed about people parking in my road. Then the streets right by the station got residents' parking... nightmare with plenty of selfish, illegal and dangerous driving/ parking. Council painted yellow lines in all the places that are illegal to park anyway - several mini junctions - which has helped but it's so bad that we've given in and agreed to parking restrictions being brought in on our road.

Doesn't excuse criminal damage of course, and some people are just weird about 'their space´ which is nothing of the sort but I've had enough. The commuters will have to use the car parks - that's the trade off if you go for a house further from the station.

We did tell the council we wanted to protect parking for people working in the town centre, though, so they will make the vouchers available to local workers as well as residents.

aquashiv · 03/01/2014 23:34

Why don't you just the car park or use public transport?

Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme · 03/01/2014 23:41

yanbu its like people who live near schools moaning about parking

I got ranted at by a lady near our primary school about people parking outside her house. I parked there once and she clearly remembered. She said 'oh but I don't mean you dear' as passive-aggressive as you like. When I pointed out that it was really a public road and not part of her property she stormed off. Entitled? Just a bit.

C3P0 · 04/01/2014 01:09

Get a CCTV camera in your car. They're only 25 quid. An excellent defence against oiks, bad drivers and bent cops.

Tiptops · 04/01/2014 02:49

YANBU.

They are scum for damaging your car when it is parked legally and considerately. Report to police and ask them to increase patrols in the street. Sweet revenge? Install a couple of cheap cameras discreetly inside your car and catch the morons!

EBearhug · 04/01/2014 03:13

They introduced parking permits on our street, ostensibly to stop people parking for the station and not at all to increase council income.

The permits are valid from 8am to 6pm weekdays, when many residents, including me have commuted by car to work elsewhere. On the days I am at home, there's tons of parking, just like there was before they brought the permits in.

Bloody difficult to find a parking space in the evening, though, because all the residents, including the households with more than one car have all come home.

I pointed out to the council that this was why I didn't agree with bringing in the permits, but apparently I was one of only 3 objections.

Oddly, I now have fewer qualms about parking in the neighbouring streets which are covered ny the scheme, as I've now paid for that right. It's annoying not to be able to park closer, but unless I've got tons of bags to carry, it's not a major hardship to walk a few hundred metres.

But my point is that I seemed to be in a minority in thinking that parking outside the house is just a public road, and not my personal space to be protected at all costs. Don't think there have been any cases of criminal damage, though - that is v wrong.

MidniteScribbler · 04/01/2014 06:39

I'll admit that it would annoy me if someone parked in front of my house all day every day when they didn't live on the street just because they were too tight to pay for a car park. I wouldn't ever say anything though. But that's why I also would never buy a property that had that sort of parking issue.

TobyLerone · 04/01/2014 07:21

YAobviouslyNBU in that you don't deserve to have your car vandalised for parking legally on a public road.

However, I would have The Rage if I were one of the residents of that street.

My sister lives near a station and has the same issue. No driveway, and sometimes she has to park a couple of streets away from her own house because some tightarsed twats have abandoned their cars in the 'free car park' outside her house. Not fun with a small toddler and several trips-worth of shopping.

So I can understand the frustration of the residents. But obviously vandalising your car is not the answer.

MiaowTheCat · 04/01/2014 07:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mouthfulofquiz · 04/01/2014 08:03

I've just moved house to an area where the parking is so so much better - most have parking spaces for one at least and there is nothing round here to clog up the roads for (except the church up the road each Sunday - but who minds that??)
Yet - our next door neighbour fully blocked my husbands car (on our one car drive) with his van for four hours overnight. I'm assuming that the old owners never used it. I popped out with a note explaining - 'we're your new neighbours at number 3, husband is on call at the hospital this week and may need to move his car at short notice in the middle of the night so please don't block him in, best wishes, Mrs Quiz.'
Mr Quiz just wanted to wait for his call out and then go and hammer on their door at 3am and force them to come out and move the van but for the sake of neighbourly relations I thought a note was the best start....
If it starts to happen again though, I will be going round for a chat - I'll just pop round after midnight when he comes home with the van.

Pipbin · 04/01/2014 09:13

Why would anyone ever think that blocking you car in the drive was ok at any time? There are 100 reasons that someone might need to get to their car in the middle of the night. Did you hear anything back?

SouthStaffsMadam · 04/01/2014 09:28

It is definitely not on damaging your car and I accept that people know about stations etc before buying properties but I also have this problem in our street and its frustrating.

Equally you knew there would be a train commute when accepting your job and the cost of car parking at the actual car park that has been built for commuters to use should have been a factor to consider when deciding whether to accept.

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