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

[prawnsmummy]

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.

We live in a small cul-de-sac and parking down here is a nightmare sometimes. The trouble is that although most families have two cars and a garage plus a driveway, they use the garages to keep all their barbecues, patio furniture and assorted junk in, so they have one car on the drive and one in the road.

A few houses (including ours) have neither a drive nor a garage, and we do our best to keep out of everyone else's way. Everybody has their own 'spot' on the road and we all manage fine. Until that is, someone moves and new neighbours arrive who don't understand the system and refuse point-blank to co-operate, argue the toss and generally ride roughshod over everybody.

It sometimes takes months to get them to see sense, but they generally do in the end!

We used to have the old man by school who needed the space on the road for his sister.

Now both DDs went to that school and in 10 years I have only ever seen cars doing the school run in that space.

In the end I felt rather sorry for him, because, as I say, I never saw a car I didn't recognise in that space and I wonder if sister had died or never visited and he wished she did.

I live in a quiet cul de sac; last night there was a stretch of 11 cars parked in a row in the road; every single one belonged to a local house where there was space on the drive, but the drivers couldn't/wouldn't use them.
The amount of unnecessary roadside parking has increased dramatically over the past few years; this is a village where most of the roads were originally lanes, so a car parked on the road reduces it to single lane traffic, forcing cars to drive on the wrong side of the road with reduced visibility.
One new house squeezed in to a former back garden has fenced off its drive, and parks its three large vehicles on the road, opposite a bus stop and close to cross roads; there has already been one accident and will be more, but the owners refuse to move their vehicles and the council will do nothing.
Much roadside parking is selfish and irresponsible, caused by poor planning but perpetrated by thoughtless drivers, as in:
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!
How considerate.

You were fine - she was in the wrong.

However, the car that has been parked outside our house for a month, without moving is taking the p...s!

I think if I had had a conversation where I politely asked if it was her car and asked her if she would mind moving it so I could get out and she went on and on and nothing was working I would have said "either move your car or I will make a point of parking in front of your house as close to your driveway as possible as often as possible.. daily even"

I can't be $%^&d with people like that.

We once called the police because our previous neighbours blocked my friend's car in when she was visiting from out of town and parked in "their space". They went to bed and refused to answer the door and my friend had chemo the next day. The police knocked on their door and they refused to get up despite them yelling "police!" through the letterbox. The police said that they were sick of it and called the tow truck. Our neighbours told the whole neighbourhood that we had had their car towed (of course without telling the rest of the story) and didn't speak to us for a year. That was nice, they no longer complained and whined and bitched at us. Nobody else blocked us in either.

YANBU, but she was.

We have one of those near here. She even says that she know parking is tight, but although she has lots of off-road parking, she parks all her vehicles on the road right next to her house in case someone's wing mirror should scrape her wall/ 'hit my house' (no pavement). The thing is, it's obviously not about 'hitting her house', as she tries to stop anyone parking next to her garden wall as well, even the one with so much ivy you can't get near it.

Selfish woman. She should get out more.

I went over to dm house and parked over the road as dd was a few weeks old and it was raining. Normally I would park further down the road and walk up if there isn't a space outside dm. Dm neighbour came out shouting at me like a fishwife telling me that her son was brining a new car home and he needed to park there.

I ignored her and went into dm house. Said neighbour then knocks on the door (now dm likes to have the windows open all the time ) I said v v v loudly that I am not moving the car, I am parked legally I am not blocking her drive and I am staying there. Neighbour had the nerve to ask dm to tell me to move my car as I shouldn't be parking there. Dm just agreed shut the door then told me to move the car when I'm ready. Neighbour spent the day pacing up and down the road.

Don't even get me started on the dm next door neighbour. They are just as bad