To be baffled by obsession over parking

[m0therofdragons]

We live in a small cul de sac and so generally people have 2 cars, one on driveway and one on road outside their home. There's no reason for random people to park here so all is fine. At the end of the road is another road where homes have big driveways so when we have guests they park there and walk down (there are only 7 homes up each side so it's 30seconds walk).

We live in the corner of the cul de sac and have no pavement outside our home just the entrance to 3 driveways so nearest pavement is directly outside neighbour's house. First couple of months living here we parked 2nd car at end of the road and walked down but nobody parked on pavement nearest our home so I started to. For about 14 months all was fine but then neighbour mentioned her son had split from fiancé and is moving home so would be parking there. I naively thought she meant whoever gets home first would have the spot so I said something like "oh yes it's the road so I know we don't own it. I'm sure it'll be fine."

Her son is in the forces so not home often and we've carried on parking there but he's now home and she's parking her car there so he can use the drive. I didn't think much of it - yes it's nice to park outside my house with 3dc but they are primary age and capable of walking, although I did notice she's around more than usual (but her son is home so didn't question it).

Other neighbour has just told me that my neighbour has told her how cross she is that we "steal her space" and she's had to change her work hours to ensure she gets home before me so she can get parked there!

I'm planning to ignore the crazy and carry on smiling and calling out hello. Although I don't mind walking down the road, if the space is there then I'll park there. She is a very large lady so I appreciate she cannot walk far but her son is perfectly fit and able late 20s so she can use her drive and he can park and walk 30 seconds occasionally.

Sorry for the essay. I can't imagine changing my working hours for a parking space!

I wonder what the psychological reason is for this insistence on parking directly outside - apart from sheer laziness or fear of vehicle crime.

Were people as bothered about horses in ye olden days?

Is it because a lot of money is tied up in cars, so they are an expensive asset (or financed purchase) and we don't want them out of sight?

Or is it because we instinctively want to be able to get away or escape quickly from somewhere?

However, I do think that sometimes people become multi-car households without any thought for parking (or the environment) for that matter. We are a single car household in a SE commuter town and occasionally have a day when one of us is inconvenienced or restricted due to the other person using the car, but we put up with it because we just don't need two cars. Yet I know lots of families with a very similar lifestyle who have two cars 'just because'..

I had batshit crazy the other day (disclaimer, this has been going on for 11 years now so I'm slightly more pissed off than I should be)
I reverse out my private parking. Neighbours mate shoots in front of me into my space
I wind down the window and say "sorry, you can't park there"
"I'll only be 2 minutes"
"I don't care, you cannot park there. Move"
"Why? Nothing to say it's actually yours"
And she refused to move

In the past we have done solicitors letters, copies of deeds etc etc, they're well aware of who's it is. There is free on street parking approximately 8m away (if that) but they're just lazy

So I have an order coming with a stencil, and some spray paint for the tarmac...

@m0therofdragons I didn't explain myself very well. By abandon I mean that instead of parking sensibly so 4 vehicles can fit outside mine and my neighbour's property they park them where ever they want meaning that a lot of the time I can't park and neither can my neighbour.

People be crazy

maybe it’s because it’s outside their home they automatically think it’s their land despite it being public highway. They become obsessively territorial about it.

mrex you are ridiculous, no wonder there’s so many parking threads on here with people like you.

Inconsiderate parking does cause neighbourly issues, and I think some people just don't see their own selfishness. After one of our old neighbours had a stroke there was an agreement between everyone not park in the space right outside his house. They have no off road parking and were waiting for a disabled space to be put in, but the wait in our council is approximately 4 months (and that was after a 2 month wait for the blue badge application to be dealt with).

One house refused to take part, and in fact would often park in the space even if one of the other on street spaces were avilable. Parking there before the space was marked was perfectly legal, but utterly twatty.

They were then upset when the man's wife didn't play her usual part in the street Halloween party as she didn't want anything to do with them. And seemed genuinely surprised by it!

@BlackCatsRock parking irresponsibly is very frustrating. I hate that my neighbour thinks badly of me. I'm growing a thicker skin.

My mil is weird about the space outside their house so fil rents a garage behind the house. Mil now stresses fil might forget to lock the door. I mean seriously, worst case it gets stolen and insurance covers it. Pretty unlikely where they live.

People are weird. I live very close to a primary school and obviously people will park right up to our drives. Annoying but absolutely no right to complain. If anyone, at any point, parks either outside our house or outside NDN house on the road, our NDN will beep their horn repeatedly as they reverse out of their drive. Like a lorry. Completely unnecessary and very very irritating. Doesn't matter time of day, and why they can't just back on to their drive like everyone else I do not know. Bonkers.

I support your current stance, OP, as you have a reasonable number of cars for the space available and use it sensibly, unlike your neighbour.

But when you talk about becoming a five car household in the future, my mind boggles. The total parking space available locally won’t have changed - surely your household would be taking up a disproportionate amount of parking space which would be unfair to others.

After two cars per household I think there should be far tougher regulations on car ownership or stronger incentives to car-share etc.

No one owns the space in the road outside their property, the council do, and no one should be ( half) parking on a pavement or verge either.

Thing is we all pay council tax, regardless of whether we store cars on the road or not, so it’s free. I reckon if everyone had to pay to store cars on the road there would be a change in attitude- not alone to the size of car people purchased

My PIL hate the parking our street. It’s a long row of Victorian terraces do no drives and quite a few cars. Sometimes we can’t park outside the house but can always find a space around 3 or 4 doors away or over the road, it’s not really a problem. But they go on like they’ve had to park In Timbuktu and trek across the desert to reach out house when in reality, they’re 4 doors down. My MIL even waited for us to come back from the hospital after the birth our our second child (she’d kindly been stocking the fridge for us) so we could get the space outside the house because the parking is “atrocious” on our street! The road was nearly empty!

After two cars per household I think there should be far tougher regulations on car ownership or stronger incentives to car-share etc.

Those schemes only work if places have decent public transport.

Luckily we will have enough space on the drive, but we’re about to become a 4 car household because of the scrapping of a bus route. My DS and nephew currently share a car as DN can get the bus to college. Once the bus route is scrapped they’ll need a car each as DS doesn’t have time to take DN to college before he goes to uni.

DH needs his car for work and I need mind because my DD averages two medical appointments a week and, again, bus routes have been changed/scrapped which means I have to drive.

I hear what you are saying and it is a tricky one, but I suspect that if the cost/disincentive was sufficiently severe then people would have to do odd and inconvenient combinations of lifts/routes rather than add an additional car to their household.

I am in my forties and anticipate that we will see the rationing of individual journeys in my natural lifetime.

@MaybeDoctor I have 3dc so I imagine there may be a time after uni when they could all be at home (youngest are twins so I'm afraid I didn't spread the ages out like most 3dc families). If we lived in the south east (where I'm from) then car is non essential. In Somerset, car is essential. As I said, road at end of our road has lots of space and once dc aren't storing garden toys in the garage then we could use that (neighbour has a garage too).

I take dc to school and dh collects from cm so not sure how we could have one car. Not too many car shares wanting to do a school run on the way to work either. Primary is 45 minute walk - catchment school but we have an air field between us and school.

We had worse... our neighbours decided they were entitled to our parking space! (We both rent but when we moved in we asked for the plan from the deeds showing which spaces belonged to the house, definitely specific spaces for each house and not just a shared car park) so they started parking in the middle of their space and ours so we couldn’t fit our car in!

@paintwater oh god, people are so rude!

I'm just pretending all is good and like I've not noticed the crazy.

My street is horrendous (small street 11 houses with longish road into it with no parking) moved in last year. All the residents have one parking spot on the driveway, and there is visitor parking for up to 6 cars but no overnight parking allowed (they all do though and park so only four cars fit 🤬)One house has five cars, another has four and others three. Only myself and my neighbour have just the one car.
The way the street is laid out, only me and neighbour have the option of parking over our own driveways without blocking anyone else in.
All of the other neighbours just park extra cars over our drives so we have to manoeuvre to get in or out. Every time I confront someone over my drive they just say "oh well no 3 park over my drive so I parked over yours" or "I'm not leaving it on the main road, it's too far". None of them can grasp if you bought a house with one spot, then it should be your problem what you do with your other FOUR cars!
They have a sense of entitlement that they have lived here since the house was built, so as the newcomer I am supposed to bow to their selfishness.

A couple of weeks ago as I pulled into the narrow entrance neighbour was over my drive. I refused to move until he moved his car, about 6 cars were stuck behind me until the standoff finished. TBF it has got a little better since then, and I know they think I'm the crazy one but 🤷🏻‍♀️. If anyone of them had knocked on and said, listen I'm struggling with parking, I'm at number whatever, and I'll be gone by 8am then I probably would have been neighbourly.
Sorry that got long, nearly started my own thread about this a few times 😀

@BertyFlanter all our neighbours up the road have one space then the road but there's only space on one side of the road. A couple of them park on pavement so I have to walk in the road but historically they've always done it and I'm just not taking on that argument. Cars are fine but the massive white van causes issues.

The daughter of the first house in the road regularly stands outside the front of the house in her dressing gown smoking (whatever the time of day - an no she doesn't work shifts). Clearly not parking related but really bizarre. I assume she's not allowed to smoke in the house or even the garden but surely she could wear a sweater to look less like she just rolled out of bed at 4pm.

I came out to go to work one day and the Postie had parked his van ON MY DRIVE, literally fully pulled onto the drive.

There are 3 spaces. I was parked in one next to the house, there is one at 45 degrees to this and then one at 90 degrees, where he had parked directly in front of my car. If he had pulled on even further I could have got passed him but he was parked directly in front of my car.

He wasn't even on the cul de sac, (only 4 houses and clearly visible so although still wrong not causing a real problem) he had gone into the small town area at the end of it.

It was a good 5 minutes before I saw him and shouted him to shift the van.

He wasn't even on his way back to the van at this time. He shouted back that he would only be a few minutes.

'You won't - you'll come and move it NOW! This is my drive not a public parking space'

'Well, where do you expect me to park? There wasn't anywhere else!'

'Huh, I don't give a toss where you park so long as it isn't on my drive, stopping me from going to work you tosser '

He hasn't parked there since

Hecat was he obstructing you?