To park in front of people's houses?

[MsMarvel]

This always seems to crop up from he point of view of the homeowners (and generally are told are unreasonable...) But never seen it from the point of view of the driver.

I travel for work, and am often in small towns / villages. The sort that have quite an expensive car park, and lots of residential streets.

To save money I generally park on the residential streets and walk back into the centre. Today I'm on a street that is very much dropped kerbs for drives, and small sections of raised pavement in front of each house.

BUT

There are no lines or markings, I am perfectly entitled to park here.

AIBU to do it anyway knowing that I am probably pissing people off? I will be gone by around 3.

I used to complain about people parking at the front of our set of townhouses, because it stopped people from being able to put their bins out on bin night.

There were two occasions when rubbish wasn't taken by council because cars were parked in front of the bins. Fucked me right off.

But in general, couldn't care less really.

However, it could be argued that in areas where houses are fairly closely packed together (many urban and suburban areas), on-street parking should be for those who have business in the immediate vicinity. Extra residents cars, visitors to the residents and businesses, tradesmen and other service providers.

Oh come on, how much bureaucracy do you want? Residents' and traders' permits in a controlled parking zone, yes, but their visitors? How would that ever work?

OP It will end with a controlled parking zone, then you will have to park further out, and that will end with another controlled parking zone, then you will have to park further out . . .

YANBU
I'ts legal to park there, some people just have a weird obsession with the space outside of their house

It's really not hard,don't buy a house near a station if you are going to be whinging about people parking outside your house on the road legally! This is a big part of the investigating you do before you buy (or rent) a house surely to visit at different times and days to see what the traffic is like and the parking and if it's a busy through route or a cut through etc?

I didn't say anything about permits. That never even crossed my mind. What I had in mind was people choosing more appropriate neighbourhoods to use as a general car park. Self-regulation.

I just accept that it's an inconvenience caused by living in a convenient location close to town/station etc, where most of us in Victorian/Edwardian houses don't have off street parking/garages. Unless it's a private drive/land/road then anyone can park within the legalities of the street markings.

That said, because we are close to two secondary schools whose sixth formers would park in our street making parking very difficult, we approached the schools and requested politely that the children park a couple of streets further away, where everyone has off street parking and it's not such an issue - and for the most part they have complied and it's made life easier for residents. It is annoying if you have to park three streets away with shopping/babies/toddlers, but it's not the end of the world. We do however have one resident who NEVER allows anyone to park in front of his house - if he goes out, his wife parks their second car in the spot outside, and then they reshuffle when they get back. He was the only person who didn't move his cars when we had a street party (out of about 50 households - even those who were on holiday had moved theirs).

It does irritate me when people park REALLY badly though. Currently there are three cars parked outside my house in just such a poor configuration - there is probably room for about 5 or 6 cars, but I can't quite squeeze in between the badly parked ones!

Self-regulation.

Fat chance

Remember, zig-zags outside schools mean Reserved for the most entitled parents with the most special of snowflakes!

We have a massive problem with folk using our small access-only road to park, usually blocking drives, blatantly parking over dropped curbs.

Nobody has ever had the slightest problem with folk parking on non-dropped-curb bits in front of houses as long as they don't actually park like crap and block drives. And we're access only, so really they shouldn't be (quite narrow road).

Generally I think people are aware that parking especially in small villages can be difficult. Just don't create a blockage and you are generally fine!

It's fine as long as you're not blocking anyone's driveway. Residents don't own the street.

I used to live in a terrace opposite a church where there were no driveways and the neighbours down the road used to put out chairs to save "their" parking space before church.

You are entitled to do it, I completely understand your reasoning and do the same thing myself.

However, I am currently living (renting, hopefully not for long) in a house where people (predominantly van drivers) park all day in front of my house - my house is set down from the road a little bit and it really, truly, completely unreasonably and irrationally pisses me off. I glance out of the window and there it is VAN VAN VAN

So YANBU but I do now have an inkling of sympathy for those who get annoyed by it. I would never leave a 'note' or anything but I'd love to write something rude on their windscreen.

Oh come on, how much bureaucracy do you want? Residents' and traders' permits in a controlled parking zone, yes, but their visitors? How would that ever work?

We have this when we visit one of our friends living on a terraced street. She has a visitor's permit card, where you have to write the reg number and arrival time of your car and display it in your window. Proper PITA and means she can only have 1 driving visitor at a time. But it does happen.

I live on a narrow cul de sac, everyone has a driveway, some people have multiple cars. It gets parked up. Pavements are narrow and cars park all the way over them. I have to walk with the buggy and/or toddler on the road. It annoys me a bit, but it's doable as it's quiet.

Inconsiderate parking is a problem, not necessarily legal parking. If one person parks outside our house, and then one outside each neighbour to the left, right and opposite, we have trouble getting our car onto our drive. That's annoying.

I will admit to some annoyance with vans parking in front of my house and blocking my light/view, but I also admit I'm being precious

There are some people near my son's school who have driveways and space for two cars on the road between each house. They leave the driveway empty and park one car in the middle of the road space so no one else can. It always seems so mean spirited. We end up parked quite far away from school.

I live further into the city where there is no off street parking and often have to park quite far from my house. Annoying if it's raining, I have shopping etc. But not the fault of those parking.

Occasionally parking in a road where the houses have driveways and the residents can park there, as far as you're not parked right up to the dropped kerb so that they cannot get in to out, OK.

Leaving your car, or a bastarding van, in the same residential street where the cars are parked bumper to bumper, day in day out, not OK.

Go for it, you're fine. Do park nicely of course.

We live on a street with mostly on-street parking, close to the local shops. People park here during the day for shopping, then they go, before working residents come home. Perfect sharing really.

We are also close to a big sports ground. Match days are more trying. But, we were given the option of a residents' parking scheme once (you could get an extra permit for guests / tradespeople very cheaply) and everyone declined.

In one town nearby, people moaned about people parking on their residential streets. So the council, of course, brought in permit parking. Now they're moaning that they have to pay £80 per year per car for a permit, which doesn't guarantee them a space anyway because they all have two cars per house and the road isn't long enough, so they in turn started parking in..... other residential streets, so the permit parking extended to there... and it rolls on. Council makes money, no one is happier. In fact, most people are more unhappy about the permit parking than the previous issue with commuters or lower-paid workers parking in their streets. At least in most cases, that meant they were fine in the evening. Now, their visitors have to pay to park when visiting friends or family, on some streets until 8pm and other streets until 10pm!

I'm with Muncheys. You have at least some degree of choice in where you live. One of the things to consider when deciding is parking or lack of it, whether it the road is used as a carpark for a school/station etc and how much that is likely to bother you.

In our seaside town you basically have the choice of a) terraced house less than 5 minutes from the beach and shops, with no drive or garage, and it's hard to park near your house, especially in summer when residents try not to leave their parking space as they know they won't get it back OR b) semi or detached houses about a 20 minute walk from town with a drive or garage, or on-street parking that is usually available to you.

I chose the latter. Sometimes I wish we lived right in the town, but it was a choice we made and I have little sympathy for those who live in town and complain about the parking. It was like that when you moved there.

Charleston you are living in a dream world. People will always park in the nearest available free parking space to where they are going eg station, school etc. I, like most people can't afford to pay for parking because someone is being precious about the piece of public land outside their house.

We live on a busy but fairly narrow road in a village, also opposite a busy church. Apparently, the previous owner of our house was a bit of a tyrant regarding anyone parking in front of the house. I don't mind at all, the church parking is mostly less than an hour for services/funerals etc. I don't know how I'd feel if people were parking there every day for a full day to avoid parking costs though. Not that I could do anything about it as it's perfectly legal to do so.

We rarely park at the front of the house, other than to drop off large items, and we are very edgy when our car is on the front for a short time, as it does cause an obstruction to the road with cars having to wait to pass the stationary vehicle. Our drive and garage is round the corner.

What really annoys me is when any snow is forecast, neighbours from our little estate plonk their cars in front of our house so they don't get stuck down the street. Annoying, because our garage is also down the slope (we are at the head of the little estate) and maybe we might want to do the same.

As long as you aren't preventing someone from getting into or out of their drive it shouldn't matter. At our old house our neighbours friends would park directly behind our drive every single time they came over. I left nice notes at first asking them to please park elsewhere as I couldn't leave my house, and then they kept doing it so I got a bit passive aggressive with the notes then.
I've moved now so no clue if they still do this

If you have commuters parking outside your house, and making your life difficult, then your beef is with the council and their failure to implement residents parking/controlled parking zones.

It isn't anything to do with the person parking totally legally on a public road.

So OP, YANBU

I live near a large secondary school.

The road is busy twice a day, otherwise quiet. Sometimes we get the odd car parked outside for a few hours but not really a problem.

My moan is not unrelated....

I'm not too bothered about parents waiting to pick up their children, they generally leave gaps by the drives.

But why do they need to leave their engines running for 20+ mins.

If it's cold bring a coat.

If it's hot open the window.

bonbonours I am not living in a dream world. I am giving my answer to the specific question posed by the OP. Thankfully, this is not a problem for me. I am just mildly interested as a member of the general public. We have space for multiple cars on our driveway but no longer own one. Tradesmen and visitors are amply provided for and for various reasons hardly anyone parks in front of the house.

This argument gets a bit tiresome though when your street ends up being used as a free park and ride scheme

It's just tough though, isn't it? No parking restrictions, people can park where they like. It's just the way it is , and if it pisses people off, that is their problem, not the parkers.

Providing you are not making it difficult for anyone to get off their driveway then you are doing nothing wrong. It is not a private road.

We used to live in a small village and had no pavement and double yellows right outside our house so couldn't park outside our home and had to park in adjacent roads. We always parked considerately and never blocked driveways, but uppity home owners would occasionally come out in a strop because our cars were 'cluttering up the road', even though we weren't causing any obstruction. They didn't care that we couldn't legally park outside our own house even if we wanted to. There was even a parish council meeting called about it, where it became clear they didn't have a leg to stand on. They even suggested we (and our neighbours along the row of small cottages) 'should have bought a house with a driveway!' (we would have if we could have afforded to and there would still have been somebody living in our cottage and having to park their car somewhere, if not us) - they were ridiculous.

So yes, you are perfectly entitled to park on these roads providing you aren't obstructing anybody's driveway.

*If you're not blocking a drive then you're ok.

But, especially in the type of st which you describe OP, i think 90% of the time that people moan about the parking is because you're parking so close to the dropped curb that it's hard to get your car in and out of it.*

My mums is like this. The street is narrow, there's a school, people park 'legally'. In reality bits of their car hangs over the entrance to the drive and it's impossible to get the car to do a 90 degree bend in a space it's own length to get out and past the parked car.

^this.

If the situation is genuinely as you describe OP, then of course YANBU.

Most of the commuter parking I've seen in my local town however, would fall in to the above category. Technically legal perhaps, but actually making the surrounding drives virtually unusable - especially if you like to consider the safety aspect (i.e. being able to see past parked cars to check for oncoming traffic) when exiting your driveway.

In short, so long as you're not inconveniencing others (in a reasonable way - some will of course feel inconvenienced by the mere presence of a "foreign" vehicle in their street), then you are OK.