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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

This situation

515 replies

Letstryagainshallwe · 21/08/2017 21:28

I went out with my friend on Saturday night. Rare for me as I hardly ever go out. We went to a club had a good time then got to her car and she had a parking ticket. She was pissed off and moaning about how it's unfair that she has to pay out and none of us do as none of us drive except her (there was 4 of us out.) we get in the car and her sister suggests that we all pay some of it spilt between us. I said I couldn't as I don't have the money to pay out and it's not my fault she parked where she shouldn't have anyway she went ballistic! Because I refused. And kicked me out of her car at 4am in the middle of the street. Literally stopped the car in the middle of the road and told me to get out. I was miles from home and had to get out and ended up having to call a cab to pick me up. I haven't spoken to her since. Wibu for not contributing?

OP posts:
Ceto · 22/08/2017 16:49

I struggle to imagine a situation where someone has kindly given me a lift to a club and is equally kindly giving me a lift back home at 4 a.m., they get a ticket, someone suggests we should contribute to it for her, and I sit smugly in the back of her car expecting to be driven back home saying "Certainly not, not my problem". OP, did you really not feel in the slightest bit awkward doing that? Bear in mind that petrol money doesn't actually cover the cost of running the car, wear and tear etc. You say that she was going to the club anyway, but were you going to go anyway if you hadn't had a lift? How would you have got there and back, and what would it have cost?

Sure, you were entitled not to agree to pay, but then she was entitled to not to agree to take you home. It goes both ways. Maybe she could have dropped you near an underground station, but that's about as far as her duties towards you extend.

LadyMaryCrawley1922 · 22/08/2017 16:57

Sure, you were entitled not to agree to pay, but then she was entitled to not to agree to take you home. It goes both ways

Only to a sociopath with no regard to the safety of others.

Op's "friend" offered a lift there and back, OP paid petrol.
Stupid friend got herself a parking ticket because she is stupid, that does not create a debt on OP's part. No reason at all to kick her out in the middle of the night and leave her.

Imagine you're giving your nan a lift to bingo, and you get parking ticket. Do you demand Nan goes halves with you, and when she tells you she hasn't got it do you kick her out to walk home at midnight?

Again, only if you are a sociopath. Exact same thing.

LadyMaryCrawley1922 · 22/08/2017 17:03

And before anyone whines that it's totally different: if the principle is correct it makes no difference who it is or where they are going. If it does matter, then you've got the principle wrong.

MsGameandWatching · 22/08/2017 17:04

You're talking absolute nonsense on this thread mary, just so you know.

LadyMaryCrawley1922 · 22/08/2017 17:05

No dear, that would be you.

MsGameandWatching · 22/08/2017 17:05

I struggle to imagine a situation where someone has kindly given me a lift to a club and is equally kindly giving me a lift back home at 4 a.m., they get a ticket, someone suggests we should contribute to it for her, and I sit smugly in the back of her car expecting to be driven back home saying "Certainly not, not my problem"

Is that how it happened OP? Were you nice and polite like that? highly doubtful

gingergenius · 22/08/2017 17:06

The point is that yes, there may have been the need for further discussion about the splitting of payment for the ticket (that the OP shouldn't have to pay) but bearing in mind there would pkenty of time to come to a mutual agreement about it - because parking tickets are not usually payable on the spot are they????) so chucking acfriend out of the car at 4am was spiteful and petty.

MsGameandWatching · 22/08/2017 17:06

Anyone that resorts to calling other posters "dear" has lost the argument 😁

Bluntness100 · 22/08/2017 17:13

For the record Bluntness I am always the driver. I don't drink and am happy to do so. I also always park correctly because it's MY responsibility. If I get a ticket it's my issue. No-one else's

For the record I wouldn't wish money either, however if I was the passenger I would immediately offer.

Is that how it happened OP? Were you nice and polite like that? highly doubtful

This

It's quite clear there was a big argument and the op was chucked out and the others supported it. i think we'd have to witness that argument to understand why she did it and couldn't drive another five mins more with her in the car.

Bluntness100 · 22/08/2017 17:16

so chucking acfriend out of the car at 4am was spiteful and petty

Not necessarily. She's already said rhe three of them were arguing and she had been drinking, unlike the driver. I doubt this is about the fact she didn't pay, I think this is about the fact the argument escalated..

grandOlejukeofYork · 22/08/2017 17:18

how can anyone argue that it's ok to dump a friend at 4am in the city, for any reason at all?

Wow. How you can you live like that?

Ceto · 22/08/2017 17:21

I think there's a bit of a disconnect here about the dangers of being on your own in London at 4 a.m. I've travelled on the night bus at around that time more than once without any problems. And you can get attacked when on your own at any time of day.

grandOlejukeofYork · 22/08/2017 17:24

You are more likely to be attacked at 4am in dance clothes and drunk than you are in the middle of the day in jeans and a jumper.
Surely that's obvious?

IneedaMagnum · 22/08/2017 17:27

grand I don't treat my friends like vulnerable little women incapable if looking after themselves, and I also don't treat them unkindly. Very much give and take as well I have to say. Someone who doesn't at least offer towards the fine, after I kindly gave them a lift to and back from the club, putting myself out by not drinking and having to be responsible, and not charging them a fraction of the true cost of the lift (wear and tear) would no longer be my friend. I tend to get rid of takers in my life. Therefore I would have no qualms about retracting my kindness towards them and tell them to get themselves home. Something lots of people do all the time. I repeat, she was thrown out in London. Not far from home, plenty of transport options. It wasn't a rape dungeon.

IneedaMagnum · 22/08/2017 17:30

She's responsible for her own safety anyway. If you tell the uber driver you can't pay (or you are so rude to him that he tells you to get out), and something happens to you, would that be the uber driver's fault too? Give me strength.

RhiWrites · 22/08/2017 17:33

I can't believe people are calling OP unreasonable.

She paid petrol.
She's not a regular getting lifts from this person.

In retrospect, it might have been nice to offer a tenner towards the ticket as a gesture.

But friend was massively unreasonable kicking a woman in club clothes without a jacket at 4am in an area of London with which she was unfamiliar.

And OP was not in anyway unreasonable to call for a cab instead of finding a bus or tube station. Especially when she was experiencing any degree at all of street harassment from strange men! The situation was not safe and she did the right thing to remove herself from it. (Although personally I would prefer a licenced cab.)

OP, whatever the driver's feeling about the ticket she should not have kicked you out like that.

grandOlejukeofYork · 22/08/2017 17:34

putting myself out by not drinking and having to be responsible, and not charging them a fraction of the true cost of the lift (wear and tear)

sorry but this is all bollocks. A fraction of the cost? The "wear and tear" to your car is many multiples of the petrol cost, and on a journey you were going to do anyway? I don't think so, and neither do you, you're being silly and dramatic.
Neither are you putting yourself out for anyone.

arethereanyleftatall · 22/08/2017 17:36

NO ONE IS SAYING IT WAS KIND OF THE FRIEND TO KICK HER OUT. NO ONE. one poster said they'd do the same, but not that is was a good thing to do.

THE AIBU WAS 'SHOULD I HAVE CONTRIBUTED'.

Many people believe that yes you should to a friend, simply because it's the nice thing to do. That doesn't make these people bonkers, or ashamed of what they've written, etc; it makes them nice.

Op has said she 'doesn't know anything about what the signs said.' It's a given that parking in central London would incur a fee, plus congestion charge. I'm fairly sure my, non driving, 8 year old would know that. This means that the op made no effort to pay for parking, or to get involved. That's tight.

grandOlejukeofYork · 22/08/2017 17:37

one poster said they'd do the same,but not that is was a good thing to do

Actually several posters said they'd do the same.

arethereanyleftatall · 22/08/2017 17:43

Ok, fine, several. Not the point of the thread though.

GnomeDePlume · 22/08/2017 17:44

You both made bad decisions in the heat of the moment.

Driver because she had got a parking ticket and was upset at that and that OP didnt want to contribute to paying the parking fine.

OP because with drink taken she decided not to contribute to paying the parking fine (and may have been less than kind in expressing this).

Hopefully the lesson you are learning OP is that even if you have got a Plan A for getting home after a night out you also need a Plan B (coat, shoes you can walk in, taxi number, some idea of where you are).

robinia · 22/08/2017 17:51

No way if I was stupid enough to get a fine would I be asking others to pay a share of it.
No way I would be walking more than a few hundred yards in high heels.
No way I would chuck anyone out of my car at 4am unless they were endangering me etc.
Yanbu op.

IneedaMagnum · 22/08/2017 18:00

If someone I'm giving a lift wpykd call me silly and dramatic, and dismissing the idea that I'm doing them a favour, mocking the idea that my car's wear and tear costs more than some petrol money, and claiming that I'm not being put out in the slightest then that's find but they had better get out of my car quick (I'm not doing them a favour anyway so how on earth could it be rude to tell them to make alternative arrangements?). Luckily I'm not friends with some of you on here.

grandOlejukeofYork · 22/08/2017 18:08

mocking the idea that my car's wear and tear costs more than some petrol money

of course I (and everyone) is mocking that, it's patently untrue and ridiculous.

grandOlejukeofYork · 22/08/2017 18:09

how on earth could it be rude to tell them to make alternative arrangements?

At 4am? How can it be anything other than rude? And incredibly dickish as well.