To think that this isn't legal? (Parking thread!)

[SpaceDinosaur]

Shamelessly inspired by Jenna's thread and diagrams but no way as bad of a situation. None the less...

My new home has off street parking for 3 cars. DH and I take two spaces and my DM comes over to look after DD when I work... also friends etc, you get the general idea, we use all three spaces. The amazing driveway was a massive selling point of the house.

We also live near to a Faith school. I mention faith because I fully appreciate that parents wanting their child to attend may need to travel further as it's the only school of its denomination for a very large distance. So these parents will more often than not drive.

We knew that school drop off and pick up times would be busy. We fully anticipated some cheeky parking. It's not a big issue to me if it's 10 minutes twice a day.

Earlier this week a vehicle parked over our drive, blocking two cars in, for almost 3 hours. I was livid.

So here is my question. The dropped curbs are not across the whole drive. But the parking blocked our vehicles from leaving. I was under the impression that blocking a vehicle on a property was not legal. AIBU?

Diagram 1 is the houses. The dropped kerbs are shown in red

Diagram 2 is how parents usually park as school drop off

Diagram 3 is what happened earlier this week.

OP, just apply to the council for a drop kerb for the entire width of your drive. Will cost to do the works but then problem solved.

SpaceDinosaur Wed 18-Jul-18 09:54:16
We don't drive over the non dropped area, when the pavement isn't blocked by parents parking their cars up there it's easy to access

Do you drive on the pavement? If not, then you should have been able to get your cars out. The cars parked on the pavement wouldn't have affected you.

I may be wrong but from what I understand if your are blocking cars Ona drive you're wrong. If your drive had been empty then they could have parked there.

You’re wrong. The only protection is against the dropped kerb, not the bits where the pavement is normal.

But if the dropped curb doesn't go across the whole property, then you don't have a three car drive, you just have a paved over front garden.

This ^

I understand your utter frustration, but I had to drop something off in a road like this yesterday and genuinely couldn't find anywhere to stop where I wouldn't have been impeding someone leaving their path due to all these assumed widened drives.
The house where I needed to be already had a car in front blocking their driveway car.
Luckily I was literally 30 seconds, but if I'd have been visiting someone I'd have had no chance (middle of very long road with no parking at either end too)
It's something I was considering myself, but our road is so small, other people require on street parking and I'd bugger it up for them

2ft on to a 12ft pathway is not blocking it, the OP stated that people were having to go on to her property to get past the car that was blocking the pavement.

Turn this around a little bit. Why should having 3 car spaces entitle the owner to effectively lay claim to 3 car widths of the public road plus the pavement? Not to be confrontational but purely based on my sense of what is right, I would hope any application to extend the dropped kerb would be rejected.

Your access is the dropped kerb which wasn't blocked so you are either not blocked in or you normally bump up/down the full kerb and drive over the pavement - which is illegal.

If you don't manoeuvre over the pavement where there is no dropped kerb then a car being parked there should not make it impossible to get out. The only way it would be an issue is if you are crossing the pavement that's not in front of the drop as indicated by the red lines. If that's the case, then it's your issue really, the parked car is not at fault.

Turn this around a little bit. Why should having 3 car spaces entitle the owner to effectively lay claim to 3 car widths of the public road plus the pavement? Not to be confrontational but purely based on my sense of what is right, I would hope any application to extend the dropped kerb would be rejected.

It would be rejected. The Council would see the 'driveway' for what it is; a paved lawn.

It's not arseholish to park perfectly legally all you had to do was move your other cars you don't own the road in front of your garden no matter what you think

Best parking picture ever!!