To park in front of this person's drive

[SophiePendragon]

I had to go to school for an open day this afternoon and the usual car park was full plus a long way up the road, so I parked eventually on a space (well, what I thought was a space) behind another car, on the road.

I often see cars parked along there so I'm sure it's allowed, it's a large village, no signs or meters anywhere near there.

I noticed as I drove up though that there was a recently block paved driveway, which was the width of the property (bungalow) but it only had a small section of dropped kerb, to the left, and the rest was normal kerb, uninterrupted, which continued along the road.

Anyway this looked odd but I assumed it was fine to park my car on the normal bit, leaving the dropped kerb free obviously.

There were two cars parked on the drive but I figured that it was probably fine to get off using the dropped kerb as there was plenty of space behind them to steer to that bit, (at least another car's length) and they were little cars. I'm a fairly experienced driver and I could definitely have done it.

Anyway I got back after about 40 minutes with the children and found a note under my wiper - please do not park in front of our drive, access is needed at all times, thank you.

It was polite but a bit stroppy. I saw there was someone in, so I went and rang the bell (leaving children in the car)

The woman who answered looked quite old but not elderly, and also looked a bit of a stroppy type who might feel the world is against her. So I smiled and said I just wanted to apologise but I genuinely didn't realise I couldn't park on a normal kerb.
She said that it's hard to get off the drive anyway due to being near a junction and I said, did the council know about her kerb as I thought other people might get confused as well.

She just started saying 'don't worry about it' and was pleasant enough but truly I don't think she has a leg to stand on - does she?

I mean I won't go and park there again as I'd like to avoid confrontation with her but seriously - you have to get planning for a dropped kerb don't you, and pay for it? You can't just extend your drive and then demand no one parks on the undropped section in front of your house?

Bloody hell.

Can someone report this if it's considered unethical to have posted the snips from google streetview? It didn't occur to me that this would be wrong so if you would like to report my posts or even the entire thread I am happy for you to do that and have it removed.

I didn't take photos of it.
I didnt block anyone in. (one of the two cars was gone when I returned, not jammed between my car and the wall)
I apologised to the householder in any case.

there are millions of identical houses so I really doubt this would be recognised by anyone.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to leave this now.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2424851-to-get-irritated-by-people-parking-over-my-driveway LOL

Ok, so now I KNOW that this has to be a wind-up. Did you go and look up the planning application after this 'incident'? Really?

This is exactly what my DH would do.

OP, YANBU. People can't just pave their front gardens and declare all adjacent non-dropped kerb space to be 'their driveway'.

My neighbour has extended his drop kerb by the use of white painted lines extended a further few inches each side of the "drop". Ridiculous - he has enough room to get in & out of his driveway he's just decided he needs more. I completely ignore the lines, and I park in front of my home whether he likes it or not. The dropped kerb bit is his, the rest of the road isn't. Sounds the same with this woman OP. They don't own the road and thats that.

Seeing that photo I think you're right about them being short changed with what's left of the dropped kerb. And the brickwork on the drive suggests access only over the dropped kerb area. YANBU.

The white lines that are wider than dropped kerbs are appearing near me.
I just ignore any bit that goes wider than their dropped kerb.
One side of our street is terraced, the other is semis with 3 and 4 car drives.
they've all widened their drives but the council won't allow them to widen their dropped kerbs so they've painted white lines, essentially removing all the on road parking from their side of the street.

Council told us to ignore the white lines and park wherever there is normal kerb.

If they are council painted white lines - H lines then by parking on them you could get a parking ticket. I asked a traffic warden who was at our school recently.

We saw the neighbours painting the white lines themselves. ... Council said fine to park on the bits that are alongside normal kerbs as they shouldn't drive over these bits to get out of their drives anyway.

100% ok to park by the normal kerb. If they haven't had a dropped kerb out in they have leg to stand on.