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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think I should be allowed to park on a public road?!

32 replies

prawnsmummy · 17/09/2014 19:22

Today I dropped my baby daughter off at my MILs. Her street is terrible for parking and the space I would have usually used was taken so I parked further down the street. This was next to a house with a huge driveway, so naturally I kept WELL clear of the dipped kerb/drive and parked behind another car. After leaving my daughter with MIL I got back into my car and noticed a 4x4 parked further behind me. As I began to reverse my car the 4x4 came speeding up my backside and a woman got out with shopping and completely disappeared. I got out to inspect the distance as my parking sensors was beeping like crazy. The cow had left me centimetres! I began knocking on a door of what I thought was her house and when I turned around I noticed she was behind me so I asked why she had blocked my car in. We got into a huge debate and her reason for blocking me in was simply because 'I caused her a hard time and she couldn't park her car on her drive'. May I add again that I was nowhere near her bloody drive! After a conversation with my MIL it turns out that woman doesn't like anyone parking near her house and she's had a go at loads of people for it. The shit. Just dread to think anyone else who pisses her off might need to get their car out in an emergency.

OP posts:
Numanoid · 17/09/2014 19:24

YANBU, sounds like she is an unpleasant person who has form for treating people the way she treated you.

cathpip · 17/09/2014 19:27

My friends have neighbours like that, I take great delight in parking outside their house in my land rover, as it's a public road and I pay my car tax and insurance! (It helps that no one in the street likes them, so they all find it funny) they have yet to approach me, probably because I will point out that their caravan is parked in a turning circle and that's illegal :)

MrsPiggie · 17/09/2014 19:29

YANBU. She's a weirdo, plenty of them around. She reminds me of a neighbour of mine from years ago who wouldn't hesitate to go around knocking on people's doors to find out whose car is parked in "his" spot, although he could have just parked 6 feet further along the road.

futureponyclubmum · 17/09/2014 19:42

When I used to park my car on street I had similar problems even though I had a permit and there were marked bays on street. One old lady gave me grief for parking in the bay nearest her house (she had her own private driveway) because she said her son needed to park there when he visited. Was he visiting that day I asked. Well no she says but she wanted it always free anyway for him.Hmm If I parked there she would call the council. I told her to go right ahead, locked the car and walked off with her screeching.

Original poster
prawnsmummy · 17/09/2014 19:46

Plenty of people park outside my house and I have a driveway. I don't go out of my way to cause people's for those people. It really infuriates me how people think it's acceptable to behave the way they do. It's left me wondering if in situations such as this, would I be within my rights to call the police? Not sure what they would be able to do about it but surely it's not ok/legal to block in someone's car?!

OP posts:
Original poster
prawnsmummy · 17/09/2014 19:47

Futureponyclubmum you did right!

OP posts:
maggiethemagpie · 17/09/2014 20:40

If you've paid your car tax and you're not blocking anyone in you're legit no matter what they say.
I had a neighbour who insisted I didn't park outside his house and parked way up the road, I said I'd park where I wanted to and he could call the police or the council if he didn't like it. He kept coming round our house and making a fuss, but never actually called the police, council or anyone else.
YANBU

AdmitYouKnowImRight · 17/09/2014 20:43

Unless you have marked bays, provided she is parked 'legit' you havent a leg to stand on. So what is in front to stop you moving?

Original poster
prawnsmummy · 17/09/2014 21:08

There was another car in front of me, but I was not parked ridiculously close. As mentioned before she boxed me in and it was clearly done purposely. I had considered the room behind me for reversing when parking up and there was almost a cars length behind me before the dipped kerb started. She had plenty of room to manoeuvre her car on to her drive. I guess the next time someone parks outside my house it gives me a licence to be an utter idiot?!

OP posts:
Penguinator · 17/09/2014 21:17

She was a 4x4 driver? You do surprise me Wink

CaptainHammer · 17/09/2014 21:17

My mums neighbour has a drive way along the side of her house for 3 cars (plus garage space for 2 more!) but will still insist on parking out the front (in the middle of 2 spaces) so that no one can park in front of her house!!
People get VERY precious over parking.

NickyEds · 17/09/2014 21:47

I don't even have a car and my neighbour keeps "protecting" the space outside my house with the wheelie bins. The street is literally littered with bloody wheelie bins. It doesn't even stop people parking there (not that I care) they just move the bins on to the pavement then I can't get the buggy down it. Grrrrrrr. It's a public street, not even drives!!

chocolaterainbow · 17/09/2014 21:47

Oh we've one on our street too, when we moved in we parked the moving van outside the house and DP's car further down the road. (It's a wide road where there's loads of parking, actually you'd park with the car facing the row of houses iyswim ..none assigned or even painted on the tarmac). While I was inside and DP and DF were unloading humongous heavy furniture and several thousand boxes of trinkets and knick knacks she shouted from down the road that her DH needed to park his pickup there and we had to move it immediately. Bloody stupid DP went and moved it a couple of feet over for her as well Hmm. She then came back a week later when it was parked outside the house next door to hers and asked me to move it, I just made up some bullshit that DP had the only key and he's in work so Grin I park outside there all the time now and say hi to her really nicely Wink

CorporateRockWhore · 17/09/2014 21:49

People are so weird about their little patch of tarmac.

Our neighbours have a massive 'no turning' sign in front of the large square of land outside their driveway - so not even their actual drive - I turn in it often and give them a merry beep of the horn and wave while I'm at it.

Hoppinggreen · 17/09/2014 21:52

When we rented a property on a busy street many years ago as we were moving in the next door neighbour came round to tell us which was " her" parking space outside and how we should NEVER park there.
Guess where we parked whenever possible for the whole year we were there????? Drove her nuts!!
To be fair it was right outside our door but apparently the tenants before us hadn't had a car so she had decide that was her space.

SistersOfPercy · 17/09/2014 22:53

I came home a few weeks ago to find bloke from up the road hammering furiously on my neighbors door because "the Bastards have parked outside my house and my son is visiting!"
I live in a half mile long cul De sac, his house has a double drive at the back, the street was completely empty. I kind of did a comedy double take and asked if he was serious. He was very very angry and I was very Grin

Of course if we need to move one of our cars to wash another etc we have been known to park there just to watch him pace his lounge window for a bit.
He's a rude, entitled bully but it doesn't wash with me.

MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 17/09/2014 22:58

There's a lady near our primary school like this. The road is perfectly wide enough to park safely, which to be fair hardly anyone does as the school has an enormous car park but woe betide you if you park near her house.Confused

I did once and she saw me. She cornered me a few days later and made some passive complaint about cars parking in the road and making it difficult for her to get in and out. Honestly, she has a small car and a massive drive, I could have got my Landrover in and out of her drive with a lorry parked outside.

I said sorry but as it's a public right of way you can't really tell people they can't park there.

She turned round without a word and went back inside her house. She doesn't like me now. Which means she doesn't bother me with her petty arguments. Win win. Grin

sanfairyanne · 17/09/2014 23:06

how did she box you in? surely you must have been similarly close to the car in front to be boxed in?

SistersOfPercy · 17/09/2014 23:11

My neighbors opposite are hilarious to watch, they both have double drives and a garage to the rear of their the property accessed by a wide service road but both like to park at the front on the road in the day.
It's a wide, empty road yet both reason that the width of their property is where they should park and woe betide should the other encroach. They shuffle cars all weekend to protect this space, space which amusingly they don't even look out on owing to high hedges.

One particularly windy night one refused to put her car away in it's garage as the other was parked a little over. It was bins night. Bins + wind + reasonably new car = huge dent the next morning. Never could understand why twenty feet of tarmac on an empty road is so important.

JCDenton · 17/09/2014 23:18

The woman next door has no parking signs in her window and comes flying out of the house as soon as anyone looks like parking there. She is not infirm, doesn't even drive and when her family pick her up they just stop in the road.

Hilariously, the one day she was having work done on the house and really needed the space, someone parked outside and left the car all day. If you will cry wolf every day...

Bilberry · 17/09/2014 23:21

Surely it is mad to park on the road if you have a drive? The car is safer on the drive and insurance is cheaper if you park it there.

SistersOfPercy · 17/09/2014 23:26

Exactly bilberry, but it's their bit of road don't you know. Just to compound it one of them has a son who's now passed his test. It was uneven for a while but now the other side have stared to bring both of their cars round now. It's funny, entirely empty road and four cars bumper to bumper.

MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 17/09/2014 23:36

No way would I be parking my car out on the road when I could use my lovely big driveway. It could get hit by anything. Bonkers.

Veritata · 17/09/2014 23:45

We've got a maisonette opposite our house with two spaces outside, but only one of the maisonette owners has a car. However, she absolutely obsesses about these two spaces and usually parks across both to stop anyone parking in the second space. If anyone dares to do so, she does her best to box them in and then lurks for hours with her curtains twitching, ready to leap out and create a massive scene if the other car so much as touches hers when the owner tries to get it out. The other day some unfortunate man dared to let his trouser leg brush her bumper when he moved round behind his car and she went postal.

If I have time, I like to play with her when she tries that game on me. I make sure that I make a massive meal of getting the car out, manoeuvring back and forth several times and each time making sure I get within half an inch of her bumper but don't touch it. I like to watch her blood pressure rising steadily with frustration and rage before I drive off waving merrily as I go.

Fluffyears · 18/09/2014 00:43

We have an allocated numbered space and entitled fuckers park in it a lot Angry. When I lived with my parents I parked in the public carpark behind the houses and used a space someone else liked to have (massive park lots of space), bastarding blocked me in parking behind me. So me and my brother simply 'bumped' his car out the way. You know the way the fire brigade do by bouncing it up and down so it moves and left it in middle of car park. I was handing back company car that day so he had no idea who I was as I parked a different car that evening. I've never seen the driver just the shitty motor.