....to be bemused by people NOT using their driveways???

[RebeccaBunchLawyer]

Hello.

Moved to the UK nearly 2 years ago, and until I bought a car never really realised that people WITH A DRIVEWAY DO NOT USE THEM MUCH!! Instead, they park next to their driveways, sort of “displaying” their driveways or “protecting” them, then hogging the bit of road next to said driveway.

My very odd neighbours have recently created a driveway and dropped curb (at “considerable” expense as he likes to tell anyone who’ll listen), but, yep, you guessed it, they have only used it to park their car in a couple of times when they went on holiday!

And yes, obviously a fully taxed and insured car can park legally on appropriate bits of road, but why not use your driveway and why the f have one built if you don’t really want to use it? Most of my English friends go on and on about wanting one but would they use it?

I feel like going to my neighbours and asking if I can park my little car on their driveway to get it off the road, since they obviously don’t really want it?!

Neighbours opposite me keep the street amused with their parking antics.

They have 2 micras which, end to end, overlap onto their NDNs frontage. The wife is home most of the day and moves her car for maximum pavement coverage as soon as hubby goes to work. If anyone dare even go 2" onto THEIR parking space, even for a couple of seconds whilst parking, they rush out of the house, shouting and swearing, it is ridiculous, but often amusing. If anyone leaves their car in front and they return home you pray the driver escapes verbally unscathed, but they don't because my dear neighbours park their cars either side of the offender's car with a hairs width space, blocking them in. They have CCTV installed and apparently it sets off an alert if something moves in front of their property.

Last year though they angered everyone here and lost any respect that may have been lingering. A neighbour with a terminal condition had a palliative care nurse visit urgently. The nurse refused to move her car when they arrived home together, each in their own car, so they blocked her in and went shopping, in town, on the bus, leaving the nurse's car there for hours. Disgraceful.

@kaytee87 Unfortunately the police are not interested and neither are the council or the local traffic wardens. NDNs have caused lots of other problems in the past (complaining about us to SS, shouting at DH and DC in the street, intimidating me on my doorstep, throwing things at us in the back garden), so just pissing about with their passive aggressive car parking is frankly a relief. Still want them all horribly and painfully maimed though.

Yes! My NDNs have a parking space next to ours and yet they insist on parking in the turning circle every single day that is there for three sets of people to get on and off of a long but quite narrow shared driveway with set spaces easily.

It drives me fucking mad!! Especially as my house is furthest away from the road and my driveway goes round a bend to the side of my house so the turning circle would be really useful to 5"1 me who gets a crick in the neck trying to reverse that far round and see over DD's car seat!

Tossers.

My neighbours have several cars and only 1 of them in their drives. The other cars outside on the road and in my next door neighbours drive 😳

Their drives could fit all their cars!!

I can get two cars on the drive, or 3 at a push (with one car in front of a 2nd), but they'd have to be small cars. In any case, I park on the drive as there's very little on street parking due to the shape of the street.

Not much in the way of CF parking, though.

Well we have no drive and live in a very studenty area which means each house has about three cars each. It's very rare we even get to park on our own street, never mind outside our own house! That would be luxury.

Just caught up with most of the replies here- hilarious yet rage-inducing at the same time!

My dream would be to drive down a street without any parked cars just once. But that would be eerie and also mean that people might actually be using their driveways!

malificent7; have read loads of your posts when I was previously a lurker! Hi!

Bumblesnuff, that’s dreadful, and what on earth could these people have felt justified in getting worked up about? What sort of stuff did they shout at people?

I park on the road even though I have a drive. Some utter prick will always park opposite the drive and make it next to impossible to get off (sloped drive on a bend). If it means others can't park, well they brought it on themselves.

My street (or at least the stretch I can see from my window) often has no parked cars at all. Everyone has large drives and garages. There are two designated parking bays (can fit 2-3 cars each), but they’re very often empty.

Sadly the people who live at the end of the road, next to the traffic calming measures, insist on parking on the street outside their houses. It wouldn’t bother anyone except that it makes it very difficult for anyone to get in or out of the entire estate. We’re all hoping that they’ll put double yellows there when they do the road markings. Then the people can just park in the empty parking bays less than a minute walk away from their door.

Most people here have enough room on the drive for one car, so they do one on the drive, one on the road, which is fair enough.

Next door are extremely slightly territorial about the space outside their house. If you park outside their house (NOT blocking their drive, just on the road outside), you get a snotty note on your car, and if they catch you, Mr-next-door comes out and tries to intimidate you into moving. They've recently taken to leaving a traffic cone in their spot to "reserve" it.

This morning, someone came, moved the cone and parked there anyway! Petty as fuck but it made me laugh!

My street (or at least the stretch I can see from my window) often has no parked cars at all. Everyone has large drives and garages. There are two designated parking bays (can fit 2-3 cars each), but they’re very often empty.

Sadly the people who live at the end of the road, next to the traffic calming measures, insist on parking on the street outside their houses. It wouldn’t bother anyone except that it makes it very difficult for anyone to get in or out of the entire estate. We’re all hoping that they’ll put double yellows there when they do the road markings. Then the people can just park in the empty parking bays less than a minute walk away from their door.

We have lived here for 7 years and it's the first house we've had with no driveway. Didn't matter when we moved in because there was loads of parking on street and you could always get in somewhere near.

Loads of people have had drives put in over the years. They have the full width of the house so each takes 2 spaces off the road. Family a few doors down had one and always park over it, not in it. Their regular visitor then parks in front of someone else's house.

Another lot moved in over the road. They have a drive big enough for 2 cars parked next to each-other. They bought a bloody boat which they put in one half of the drive. The other half is kept clear for wife's new car. Husbands huge car and DD''s piece of shit car then get left in front of houses without drives and never move.

We have now got so many HMOs in our street that there isn't enough space for everyone to park. We can get both our small cars in front of our house by parking bumper to bumper, so one of the HMOs residents has taken to trying to squeeze in behind when one of our cars isn't there. He has blocked me in 3 times . It only works when you have the keys to both cars, otherwise there isn't enough room.

We are going to end up having to have a drive, which we really can't afford, or move.

My old house which hasn't been fucking sold yet is on a main road, so almost everyone parks on their driveways. My next door neighbour parked his on the road once, and was bemused in the morning when his car had been sideswiped and written off. Funnily enough he always used his driveway after that.

At my new house, which is on a quiet suburban road, everybody has huge gated driveways but there is some CUNT man who parks his fucking vw polo outside his house, where the road bends. I've not even moved in yet but when I've been in to see the builders I've almost hit it nearly every time.

People are weird.

Sadly the people who live at the end of the road, next to the traffic calming measures, insist on parking on the street outside their houses. It wouldn’t bother anyone except that it makes it very difficult for anyone to get in or out of the entire estate. We’re all hoping that they’ll put double yellows there when they do the road markings. Then the people can just park in the empty parking bays less than a minute walk away from their door.

Arbitrary Contact your local councillor - should be on a website. Ask them to make consideration for this - it's usually done at this time of year. I've had a successful request for double yellow lines.

Some people do it so that other people don't park in front of their house... Some people are strange like that, I couldn't give a damn if someone parks in front of my house as long as it doesn't block my drive

I have a lovely drive, however it is incredibly steep and would need to use wheel blocks to stop the car rolling. I park on the road and dh parks on the flat part at the bottom of the drive.

As for people putting cones outside their houses.... I'd love to just drive over them and crumple them up but I don't have the balls

This annoys the crap out of me. We have very limited parking in our street and for years and years it was generally accepted that the Soave outside your house was yours. All bar 3 of the houses also have large drives. If you can't park on the street or in your drive the nearest parking is a 4 minute walk away. Worked perfectly well till we got new neighbours.

The have a drive that can fit 6 cars easily (last neighbours could squeeze 9 onto it). They're a 5 car household as older teens have cars. They installed frogging basketball hoops on the driveway and it's now a playground for the teens rather than for parking (there is ample space in their garden btw, the mum prefers them at the front as the bouncing ball noise annoys her if it's at the back). So now they park 5 cars in any spaces on the street taking up 5 of 12 soaces. When one of the ladies who doesn't have a drive had an operation they were asked by another neighbour (our neighbourhood watch guy) to leave her space for a couple of weeks they replied that they paid Road tax so could park where they liked. Rude bastards.

Our NDN's do use their drive however I'm convinced the only keep their 3rd car so they can park it in the road outside as they hate anyone else parking outside theirs. Blocked a friend of mine in once for parking there!

I'm of the opinion that developers shouldn't be allowed to build a garage unless it fits an estate car in and there is room to open all of the doors whilst in the garage.
I also think drives should have to be legally big enough to park an estate car on.

Second post and a complete twat boasted about how they aim to damage legally parked vehicles because they disagree with something. An MN record?

Second post and a complete twat boasted about how they aim to damage legally parked vehicles because they disagree with something. An MN record?

Second post? I can’t see anything controversial in the second post. The third post talks abiut cars illegally parked on the pavement and not making an effort not to ping the wing mirrors but that is not about damaging legally parked cars at all.

Drives me insane. I live on a road of narrow Victorian cottages. Parking is a nightmare and there are only two people out of about 20 who have driveways and use them. The others park their multiple cars on the road leaving their driveways beautifully empty. I often have to park two streets away because parking is so bad here. We can’t afford to move but the stress of parking will give me a heart attack one day.

Some people my road do this and it drives me mad. Some houses have drives, others don’t so parking is at a premium and I get irrationally wound up when I have to park down the other end of the road because they have an empty drive and cars on the road!