To think that people should park on their drives if they have one?!

[Singsongsung]

Ok. It's a parking AIBU so I'm bracing myself...
I live on a cul-de-sac, they layout of which means that parking is pretty limited. There are several people who regularly park on the road when they have decent drives (easily big enough for 2 or 3 cars). This means that whenever we have visitors they have nowhere to park and end up parking on another road entirely (probably irritating the hell out of the people who live there!).
I don't understand at all why anyone would choose to park on the road and leave their driveway empty?
AIBU? (Dons hard hat and braces herself)...

Don't the neighbours also pay taxes to enable them to use space A (assuming you mean the road)?
If space A is the road then it doesn't belong to anybody and anybody can use it.
If people are so het up about parking then perhaps they should only consider moving into houses with sufficient off road parking for themselves and all of their visitors.

You're right about that Super. I thought I had, given that I bought a house on a road with drives big enough for 2/3 cars.

Yes they do pay their taxes as well. Does that give them 100% rights to the parking then and me and others 0%? As I've said, no one minds people parking on the road when they need to. Of course not. However, when people use the road all of the time and leave an empty drive when that effectively removes all of the parking for everyone else all of the time then they are unreasonably selfish.

I can't understand why you would even want to risk your car sitting on the street for someone to scratch, bump, run in to, hit with footballs, easier to steal etc, when you have a perfectly good drive.

Then again, I could never understand people putting all their worthless crap in a garage and leaving their valuable car outside.

I agree Midnite. Interestingly one such neighbour did get her car scratched a few weeks ago. A visitor to another house had squeezed in the tiny gap between her two cars (both parked on the road, drive empty) and scraped the door somehow. The drama was a sight to behold!

No sing song it doesn't give them 100% right to use the road and you 0%. It gives everyone equal right on a first come first served basis.
You might have bought a house on a street where most houses have 2/3 driveway spaces but to guarantee your own parking you yourself need to purchase a house with enough parking for you as you cannot force people to utilise their drives.
I prefer to park on my drive because it is easier to get disabled DC in and out of the car and it reduces the risk of damage to the car from children's scooters and bikes but there has been occasions where I have not been able to get into my drive due to children in the road or people parked overhanging my drive and I have to leave the car on the road on window cleaning day so that the nice man can erect his ladder.

Sorry about the lack of punctuation, I am on my phone and not good at typing on a tiny screen.

You can't force people to use their drives obviously but it doesn't make it nice neighbourly behaviour to block the road rather than use your drive.

I always go out of my way to try and be the reasonable one so I've never said anything to my neighbours (well they're in the next street). BUT it really pisses me off when I try and come home after a long shift and I have to do a 3 point turn drive back to the village centre, park and walk.home (1.5-2miles) because they've blocked off the road a-fucking-gain.

First come first served doesn't always work though Super. I have a neighbour who lives alone but has two cars. At least is always on the road. Always. He is out now, probably at work so out for the day, and one car is on the road with an empty driveway.

'ShotGun welcome to the real world in which people own cars and want to park them safely and off-road.'

Thanks for the welcome Andrew.
It seems that in spite of said car owners having the facility to park them safely and off road, they choose not to and instead cause in onvenience for others.

Btw, I happen to have a rear entry drive (fnar), which goes behind a terrace of five houses, all of whom pull in off the shared driveway allowing myself and other neighbours to pass. Parking on the road is very limited indeed and you would have to be a right twat to do so unless you were temporarily making space tor workman's a cess.

But if you want people to park safely and off-road you cannot whine if they dig up their gardens and get dropped kerbs. Where there is no drive there is no other choice.

@Gymbob - calling someone a "whining OP" is not the same as being called an "arsehole". I used no profanity towards the OP. Pity you didnt state that bit too before pulling out the proveriabl "pot-kettle" drivel...

^You can park in space A or space B. OP can only park in space B.

Which is the most efficient way to park two cars?^

And the relevance of this is...???

The fact remains undisputable that the OP's neighbour can park in either their drive or on the public road. What part of that cant you grasp?

Laws arent about "efficiency" of highway usage, no matter how you try and slice it. The neighbour is doing nothing wrong, legally or morally. If the OP cant get a space on the road, thats not the neighbours problem.

Sure, its a ball-ache, but get over it - the neighbour is within the confines of the law and acting nowhere near as bloody entitled as the OP who complains as if the neighbour has somehow "stolen" the road for their exclusive use when they havent done anything of the sort..

And the OP has a driveway space of her own and is just hacked off that parking is difficult for her visitors. It isn't as though she is arriving home laden with shopping etc and having to park half a mile from her house.

Jeez. I've been called aggressive on here but I reckon I'm an angel next to suck.

For the record, OP, you're on a board called "Am I being unreasonable?" That justifies you in asking the question. I also don't think you asked it in a whiny way.

Already said my bit earlier in the thread, but I think if you have a driveway and don't use it, you're selfish. It may be legal but it's not very neighbourly. I know plenty of people who live on narrow or busy roads or have awkwardly placed driveways and still use their driveway. shrug

The fact remains undisputable that the OP's neighbour can park in either their drive or on the public road. What part of that cant you grasp?

I grasp it perfectly well, thank you. Please read my posts back. I am not, and have never, disputed the right of the driveway owner to park on the road.

What I am asking you is very simple:

You can park in space A or space B.
OP can only park in space B.
Which is the most efficient way to park two cars?

The relevance is, of course, that the correct answer - the one that maximises efficiency - is for you to park in space A and for the OP to park in space B. Bingo, both cars are parked in spaces.

But you won't answer that because when you do so, you will be acknowledging that maintaining your right (and it is a right) to park in space B is not the most efficient way to park or to work to a solution that best fits both people.

And acknowledging that means acknowledging that you're an arsehole because only arseholes deliberately and openly seek to be obstructive, to reduce the efficiency of a goodwill system.

But you don't care. Your neighbours are welcome to go fuck themselves.

You are right, I don't care - and its a shame you repeat your personal attack on me because I "dare" offend you somehow with a legal and perfectly reasonable viewpoint that doesn't match yours.

And that's fine - like I said, your repeated "arsehole" personal attacks on me says a lot more about you than it does me.

As for your question, I don't need to answer it because its hypothetical and nonsensical and has no bearing in the real world.

There is absolutely nothing stopping the OP from parking her car on the road if and when there is space and do the same as her neighbour - but oh wait, that would make her an "arsehole" too right? Sigh.

Yes. If it's habitual and her driveway is empty, yes.

Poor effort. Oh well.

Is Suck singsong's road parking empty drivewayed neighbor?

You -ANBU to think people should generally park on their driveways if they have one.

A few people have really good reasons not to (usually variations of using the drive actually being almost impossible or dangerous due to seriously reduced visibility caused by other parked cars, or risking being parked into their own drive) other people have reasons which only stand up to the "I can do what I want, its my right innit" sod everyone else I'm all right Jack and there's nothing you can do about it line of logic...

Not when there's too small a space between the road sign and the window cleaner's van and you feel the need to prove to dd1 you can get through.

And yes it does need to be fixed and yes it is probably going to run into the £100s. Grr.

Mind you df lost an argument with dm whether he needed to open both garden gates to get the mini out. He also lost the wing mirror.