Inconsiderate parking

[DeborahDowner]

Is there anyone on here who could explain to me why you would consider parking up in front of someone’s home nearish to an airport, for any old length of time, rather than paying for long stay or taking public transport?

Will anyone admit to doing this IRL? Please enlighten me. Honestly I’m all ears as I’d never, ever consider doing this to you and I’m trying to understand the thought process.

I don’t think I AIBU but I would love to hear the flip side of why people would think it’s ok to do this...

—i may have a flyparker outside our home (again)—

And fwiw I always reverse in not that it makes any difference when someone has parked right next to my drive, I still can't get out.

People's right to park near their homes and get their children inside, shopping in, have guests visit etc. trumps people's right to be cheapskates and not just pay for parking.

No, sadly, it doesn't. People can park wherever they like, as long as it's the public highway and they're parked legally. No-one is more entitled than anyone else - unless you have either residents' parking or a disabled space - to park outside your house.

YANBU

My mum lives on a road near an airport. Fly parking has become a bloody nightmare the last few years.

Residents have driveways and garages, but the road is narrow and quite windy and people park like dickheads and make it a nightmare for people to get up and down the road. They block people’s driveways, park on tight bends, park on both sides of an already narrow road and park on pavements

A fire engine would struggle to get through, and as a PP has said, they often don’t get their bins emptied as the the bin lorry can’t get through.

A neighbour couldn’t have their sofa delivered as the lorry couldn’t get down the road because someone had parked like a dick and buggered off on holiday.

The council aren’t interested when residents have complained, they’ve asked for resident permits or double yellow lines, but have been told no. They have a number for a fly parking hotline they’re supposed to call, but it never gets answered

My mum and dad have lived there for 40 odd years - long before the airport became the size it is today

I guess those saying it's perfectly fine aren't those who frequently have to park far away from their house and carry all their shopping, have to manage a baby in a car seat with a toddler or can't get off their drive drive because someone is blocking their access to the road. If it doesn't affect you of course you can be adamant they're not doing anything wrong. I am sure you'd change your tune if it did.

Let's face it the place the OP lives is not a run down council estate it's all listed buildings in a naice village ( assuming I've guessed right) They prob live in the castle

Well I live in a new build estate and people don't have enough allocated parking spaces, so we suffer too. But it's legal here too. In fact as our roads aren't adopted by the council there is NOTHING we can do. Whilst people don't park for 2 weeks they park every day in the same places - drop curbs on corners or on the grass etc. Let's face it people don't care. I personally just ignore it now as your angst doesn't change things.

Are you hoping to appeal to people considering parking to fly? I'm not sure your thread will do anything. Sadly people will never think it applies to them, even if they outraged when someone else does it---- in their road !

I guess those saying it's perfectly fine aren't those who frequently have to park far away from their house and carry all their shopping, have to manage a baby in a car seat with a toddler

I always have to park a long way from my house as there is no parking at all on my road and no loading. I just accept it as part and parcel of having no drive. If bin lorries or fire engines can't access due to legal parking then there needs to be a change though, that's terrible.

When we lived in London we often ended up parked several streets away, it was normal nobody complained about it. When we moved to The North of England our neighbours kicked off if people parked outside their house, even though everyone had a drive, we couldn't believe it at first. I think that people who have always lived in busy areas are more mentally robust about this as are people who have not grown up with fewer cars and an unrealistic expectation of personal space spilling out into public areas.
Residents parking is the answer to this issue in the longer term.

I can see people love a bit of nitpicking!

Anyway for those of you who want to know:

1. Firstly the place in question is very, very old in sections. I’m talking you know - Saxon, Roman, Tudor...
2. There is a huge problem with pavement parking and the police can be called for this if dangerous, but during some months of summer and excessive fly parking is this REALLY a good use of our local policing?? Especially when van and shed burglaries seem to be prevalent. I know what I would rather the police are doing...
3. The roads are really small. Often the council cannot do things to areas that are old, such as snazzy painting, bollards etc so this is challenging. The bin lorries will not attempt to get down any roads where there is bad parking (although not illegal) and there have been many instances where no refuse has been collected for a month at a time. Legal parking - can’t move the cars. Nowhere to put 15+ sets of bins for bin men to collect ‘at the end of the road’ as they won’t come further if cars are blocking road. Just have to tolerate this inconsiderate behaviour
4. Not all the residents want permits so this is difficult for those who do. Permits have been put in the worst places recently
5. Bad sight lines when driving with poorly parked cars increase chances of pedestrian accidents. It’s not only annoying for residents, it makes things more dangerous for other road users.
6. Pavement or bad parking - can’t use buggies, wheelchairs etc
7. It is on an excellent public transport network and has multiple car parks, some long stay car parks further from the terminal are far cheaper. There are other options

Yes I have never been able to park outside my house reliably - it honestly doesn't register with me as a "thing". Obviously the nearer I can park the better but I don't have any malice towards the cars, I don't own the road.

I would personally never do it myself but if people pay their car tax then they have every right to park anywhere that is legal.

I wouldn't be happy if I had random cars outside my house but I wouldn't move into any house where this was possible regularly. If someone needs access to get shopping in they shouldn't feel entitled to use the public highway that all road users pay towards as their private space

@thatawkwardsilence
Get a grip 🙄 you snob

Not everyone who lives in a place like that is ‘posh’ and lives in fancy housing FGS. There are flats, small terraced houses and cottages. Some modern, some old. But the roads are 1 car narrow in a lot of places with no pavements or tiny pavements and a lot of it is on a hill.

Could be worse. They might have parked in your drive or across it. This seems to becoming more common.

I would personally never do it myself but if people pay their car tax then they have every right to park anywhere that is legal.

It’s council tax that pays for public roads in local areas not VED tax, which many cars are exempt from

I think OP is the cheap one for not paying for somewhere with better road access. It's awfully entitled to buy a house and expect the road to be yours too.

(/end sarcasm, for the record)

Almost all taxes can end up being towards roads. My point was that they are allowed to use the roads for driving on and parking once done legally.

There is probably a lot more congestion in areas close to the airports too, if airport traffic is banned from parking on certain roads that any other road user is free to do so then should we also ban them from driving on certain roads too OP?

I think people still call it road tax because they are stuck in the past

www.osv.ltd.uk/where-does-vehicle-tax-go/

My point was many cars don’t have “car tax” legally so where would they park?

My point was they have a right to be on the road not that vehicle tax payers are only ones who pay for the roads. Even if you pay £0 you still need vehicle tax to be on the road.

Sorry for saying car tax instead of vehicle tax, how silly of me to call the vehicle tax as car tax since I was referring to a car.

My point was many cars don’t have “car tax” legally so where would they park?

They should be SORN and off the public road

I guess those saying it's perfectly fine aren't those who frequently have to park far away from their house and carry all their shopping, have to manage a baby in a car seat with a toddler or can't get off their drive drive because someone is blocking their access to the road. If it doesn't affect you of course you can be adamant they're not doing anything wrong. I am sure you'd change your tune if it did

Yes, it's irritating and inconvenient. Living in London it's something that is a frequent occurrence in many places. But it's still legal!

We had the same issue here - people would park here all day, for weekends, for 2-3 weeks (or longer) at a time. They'd block drives, block cars, really thoughtless parking.

It got to the point where residents couldn't park in our road at all (and all nearby roads have parking restrictions so there is literally nowhere within half a mile where people could park)
So we applied for and got resident's only parking set up.
It's made such a difference - we have somewhere to park when we get home from work, we can go out knowing that we can get back into our drives at weekends (those of us who are lucky enough to have a drive - half the houses don't), and we don't have people speeding up and down our road all day looking for parking spaces.
It's so much quieter and safer.

It's the only answer in my opinion.

Right, let's be clear about this.

People travelling to the airport are parking on a residential street, where there are no parking restrictions.

If they are parking so that they are blocking vehicles then they are not parking legally, and should therefore be removed.

If they are just annoying you, then I'm afraid that's unfortunate, but you can't stop them.

I know what you mean, as I have a neighbour who has 4 cars, and parks two of them on the road outside our house, every day. If we have visitors they have to park two streets away. I feel this is very unfair, but it's a public road and he's quite entitled to do it.

What kind of cars they have is irrelevant; in fact these days I tend to assume that new, upmarket cars are probably just being leased for a monthly fee anyway, so are probably not "owned" by someone wealthy.

I think you have to get over it OP.

I guess those saying it's perfectly fine aren't those who frequently have to park far away from their house and carry all their shopping, have to manage a baby in a car seat with a toddler

I used to live next door to a school near a town and a big hospital so yes I know what it's like. Still didn't mean that I had any priority over any other driver.

Pookie are you the OP?

I think that people who get so obsessed about not being able to park outside their house should move to houses with driveways, dedicated parking or private roads. I also think that if non-residents parking is a problem, move to somewhere that's not within easy reach of an airport/station/hospital/college or major employer.

The bin thing is a bit shite, tbh. We've had problems for a few months because there's been so much building going on in my road. There have been several weeks where the bin lorry hasn't been able to get up the road because of builders' lorries. The bin people collected the wheelie bins and wheeled them down to the bin lorry to empty them, then brought them back.

People who park perfectly legally in other people's roads are no more cheeky fuckers than my neighbours, who have a garage and a drive but still park on the road, because they're strangely territorial about the road outside their house. It's inconsiderate, but perfectly legal.

I think that parking in this country is terrible but I don’t blame individuals. People are going to park wherever is cheapest and convenient for them. That’s life. If you don’t want that to happen, then you need to campaign for better regulation of some sort. And wider roads/more driveways/better parking facilities in new areas.

At the very least, you should request double yellows if emergency vehicles can’t get through.