to think that if you live near a city centre you should expect this

[mileend2bermondsey]

I currently live about 10 miles from a big city which I work in. To save money on parking in the city centre at on average 8gbp per day I drive to the outskirts of the city, park on the closest street that does not have yellow lines and walk just over a mile into work. I was chatting to a friend about it who said I was lucky my car has been nicked (dodgy area) then goes on to say she'd be fuming if commuters parked on her street. My opinon is that if you chose to live on one of the first streets without parking restrictions, there are bound to be people who will park there to save money, same with living near a train station. I used to live in a terrace opposite a shopping precinct, during business hours you couldn't park on the street for love nor money. It was part and parcel of living in that particular location, I got on with it until I could move and consider such factors when moving since. I certainly wouldnt blame the drivers or key their cars over such a 'slight' as my friend thinks may happen.

A friend of mine has just bought a house on a busy main road with double yellows. Parking on side roads nearby is free however. So she parks her massive pick up truck thing and her dh parks his large works transit van outside other people's houses all the time. I think this is inconsiderate. If you have 2 massive and ugly vehicles you should choose somewhere with parking. They must have bought one of the only houses in the area which doesn't have it.

I live 4 doors down from a school, in a terrace of houses which face a park, with a fairly narrow road in between. The pavement outside my house is about 5 feet wide, the pavement on the other side 2ft wide. There are zigzags outside NDN's up to the school gates.

Which pavement do you think the school run parents bump their wheels up to park on?

Even more annoying is the bloody woman who parks her car opposite our terrace, on a Friday afternoon, and doesn't come back for it until Sunday night, meaning that nobody can park outside their house all weekend. Including the lady with a 14 year old son with Cerebal Palsy and another neighbour who uses a wheelchair.

It might be legal, but it doesn't make it any less fucking irritating!

I'm baffled by the idea that the hairdressers parking outside their own place of work were being selfish because it's a residential street. Maybe people are parking outside their houses while they're at work...how on earth is it selfish to park in a space on a street where you work? Bonkers.

YANBU. I am at both ends of this. People park in my street for school drop offs/ pick ups plus students for the university and commuters park there all day. Our local fb community page is rife with people getting their knickers in a twist about it, but people have to park somewhere.

Parking in town is limited, and where it exists, it is very expensive. On top of paying 300 quid a month for a train ticket I can't afford another £150 for parking so I park in a residential area near my CM's and walk from there. It's about a 40 minute walk from where I live into town and I think if you can be bothered to do that instead of paying for parking then fair play to you.

I alwas park on public roads with no restrictions when I go into town. No issue as far as I'm cincerned.

If we're going to go on the "selfish to use something if someone else might want it" principle, you'd never do anything, would you? Someone else might want your seat in a cafe or to buy that last loaf of bread you've got in your basket, someone else might want that school place or hospital appointment - sometimes it's ok just to use things for yourself!

Also university permits can be difficult to get. It's not just being too tight to pay for them.

Aaaah the eternal MN solution to parking problems - buy a nice big house with a drive! We couldn't afford the houses with drives here (either buying OR renting) - not everyone lives in magical MN money land

There is a MUCH cheaper alternative: just stop whining about where other people park.

Well no Brian. If someone was aways parked in your space you could never use it.

I'm sure noone would love to never have a loaf of bread etc.

I get the need for people to be able to park their cars close to their house (and immediately outside if disabled). I do not understand the rage that is induced in able-bodied drivers at having to park a few yards down a road instead of right outside the house.

And I absolutely do not get the way that some drivers insist on parking right outside their houses when parking has been provided in lots behind a development in order to keep the roads looking nice and being safe for kids to play on. I visited a housing estate recently that had been purpose-built to allow this and everyone was parking on the street. It looked, and felt, terrible.

This is all symptomatic of a far wider problem which happens even now with new build estates. Try parking in or on those, see how narrow those spaces are as well. There was never any forward planning; the planners who designed and built these estates never saw the need for cars (think they thought we were all going to use public transport) or even thought about increased car usage. Council car park spaces too tend to be the narrowest they can legally get away with (this is certainly the case in my local council run car park. It is reasonably priced to park there but the spaces are small) so people can and do look to park elsewhere. Look at the popularity of shopping malls where they make a point of highlighting wider spaces for cars along with free parking for the day.

There is a town near me that has a combination of no parking between 9-10am and residents parking only for about a mile around the station and its high street. You may think this is utopia particularly for those of you who think it is reasonable to key or throw dog poo on cars. This is criminal damage, how any of you could advocate that at all is beyond me. You do not own the road that you live on or any space in front of or in it.

Anyway it is not utopia at all; one direst consequence of all that is that this particular high street is on its knees partly through this (the streets are mostly empty of cars) and the council's excessive parking charges for use of the council car park. Residents also pay through the nose to have a permit issued; they are not free. There is no provision made for visitors or people making deliveries. Such schemes simply move the ongoing problem further out.

Such schemes simply move the ongoing problem further out.

Totally agree. The permit-only parking extends further and further in my town as the only solution seems to be to stop commuters parking without any attempt to provide additional parking. It's one of the reasons why today is my last day at work as my morning commute is just such a hassle.

Even if I could afford to pay for parking every day, if I get to the train station any later than 7.45 the carparks are all full. As mentioned upthread, at the moment I park in a residential area (outside someones house) near where I drop DD at the CM's and then walk in (about 20 minutes) There is literally, no other option.

YANBU if you park considerately, not blocking driveways, causing obstructions etc. People do not own the road they live on and they know when they buy or rent a house that they live shops/the station/a school. Of course, that can change if a new shopping centre is built near your house as Lalyra says.

Even if residents parking is introduced, what's the difference between a resident's car and a commuter's car? Or if you can only stay for an hour to stop people parking all day and try to force them into a car park - it's the same whether a series of cars park in your road for 6 hours, or one car does.

I live near a school. It's all about whether the parking causes an obstruction. If it doesn't, I can't see the problem. People can park very badly where I am, so occasionally a traffic warden pays a visit.

I live right on the edge of the permitted zone of a major city and on the approach road to a football stadium. As you can imagine the chances of parking outside the flat are thin to non existent. I really can't get that arsed about parking a few metres down the street. If I did I wouldn't have moved there in the first place or would campaign for the street to be permitted. The commuters and football fans have just as much right to park there as I do.

I think your friend is right. I'd hate this and always feel guilty if I park outside somebody's house if I don't know them. And leaving your car there all day is downright cheeky. IMHO.

Brian the university permits I mentioned are not hard to get - I know because I work for the university, and all staff are entitled to them. The university even sent round an email at the beginning of term saying to staff 'please consider buying a permit rather than parking on local streets to show consideration to our residential neighbours' as this has clearly been a long standing issue. It's just people being tight fisted and inconsiderate (and I do think it is inconsiderate to park so far up onto a kerb that pedestrians cannot pass and are forced to walk onto the street - it's not just me with my daughter in a buggy but for e.g. someone in a wheelchair who would have to do this).

As I said in my post, no, OP is not doing anything wrong by parking on a road that has no parking restrictions. the problem is that if everyone has that attitude, it leads to overcrowding and illegal parking. So in that regard, she shouldn't be surprised people might be pissed off.

Totally agree with the miaow school of thought re parking - don't be a cunt unnecessarily.

I do find it mad that people sometimes view a parking space near their home as a God given right though. If it's unrestricted parking on your road, you can't stop people parking there no matter how annoying it is that you can't park. A colleague once was threatened by a man with a cricket bat when he (colleague) tried to park outside his (man with bat)'s house. It was free parking but he said his daughter was coming to visit and that was 'her' space. My colleague obviously moved his car rather than risk being beaten with a bat, but he also reported the man to the police and they did pay him a visit.

I don't (can't) drive though so maybe it's something I don't 'get'. I have to say I'm kind of glad I can't drive when I read these threads though. Sounds a total nightmare and it's one less car taking up space on the road so I'm probably doing you all a favour!

YANBU if there's plenty of space on the street and since it's perfectly legal. It can, though, be a pain and have consequences in a busy street. Our area has become a CPZ since we moved here and it got busier over time. the CPZ has then slowly spread as neighbouring streets got all the displaced day time parking.

I don't expect to park outside my house but parking a 15 min walk away was a pain, especially with small children.

The CPZ is just for 2 hours a day (12-2pm) to stop the all day car leaving and it divided residents when it happened.

We do now, though, have to pay £200 a year for our car to be parked as a result and every time we have a visitor or builder/roofer etc over the CPZ time it costs us £5 a pop for a visitor's permit.

I feel for neighbours who use nannies who drive to work and use their own car for picking up children as they need to have a 'business car parking permit' costing their employer around £600 a year. The doctors and teachers who parked here to work very locally have also had a tough time and the street is now under used during the day.

Not sure what the ideal solution is, though!

YANBU. People don't own the street outside their houses. It is annoying though if one particular driver just appropriates the space outside your house and leaves their car there every day from early morning until late evening. A woman does this outside my mum's house, ignoring the completely blank wall opposite where she could easily park. It's irritating because it means there's never a convenient space for my sister to park when she calls around with her baby and toddler and all their paraphanalia, or when my mother is having something delivered.

But ultimately it's a public road so YANBU.

One solution (not that I'm biased or anything...) might be to provide much better public transport. People drive because they either have to (because there is no public transport anywhere near their destination / departure point), because it's vastly cheaper or much more convenient to drive. If there were better transport links people would be less inclined to drive.

YANBU

You are not breaking any rules. I work in town centre and regularly park in residential arears as long as there are no double yellow lines or resident only spaces

I think it's useful to consider that just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Yes, you can park right up to someone's dropped kerb but, if it makes it difficult for them to get out, should you?
Yes you can park anywhere you like that is legal but should you do it without consideration to others? Is there a better alternative?

In the OP's case, she is parking where there are not actually any houses so the spaces couldn't be considered to "belong" to anyone. Assuming she's not blocking the road or restricting it in anyway, then there is no problem.

If you have the choice of parking somewhere perhaps a little further that isn't outside someone's house, then I think that is the considerate thing to do. You don't have to, but it would be nice.

Being "entitled" works both ways.

think it's useful to consider that just because you can doesn't mean you should

Yes, this. I pointed out to a man opposite our house that he was parking in a disabled bay. He told me "it doesn't f**king matter. White lines don't mean nothing". Twat.