AIBU about car parking or is DH?

[Beachcomber]

This is really petty but bugging me.

Yesterday I went to the shop with one of our cars, it's about a 30 min round journey including shopping time so I wasn't away for long at all. We have a small area between the road and our garden where we can just park our 2 cars. We never use this space for anything else.

I came back from the shop and backed into the space as I always do as the visibility isn't great when you are leaving so it's better to be facing forwards. You can't see terribly well out of the back of my car as the back windscreen is small but it has a parking sensor. I stopped abruptly as I was backing in as I heard a noise which sounded like I was starting to touch the bushes at the back of the parking space but my sensor hadn't warned me I was too close and I could see out the back that I was still a good metre from the bush.

DH appeared looking really cross and I got out the car to see what was going on.

DH had left our lawnmower near the back of the parking space, slightly hidden by the back of our other car but with 3/4 of it overlapping into the other parking space and that was what I backed into.

There is a tiny scratch on the car bumper and scuffing on our ancient and battered lawnmower so hardly a big deal.

DH had a right go at me for not looking properly, etc and I said, OK I'm perfectly willing to admit that I probably didn't look properly but I was backing into a private parking space on my own land that I could see perfectly well didn't have another vehicle on it, that I had left empty 30 mins previously and that in 6 years of living here has never had anything in it other than my car or occasionally a visitor's car.

I was pissed off at him for leaving a totally unexpected object there, totally unnecessarily and when he knew I'd popped to the shop and would be back whilst the object was there. How stupid can you get.

I admit that it is mostly my fault as a driver I should have looked better (although I'm not too sure how as I couldn't see the lawnmower out of my back windscreen which I did look out of as I always do, I never just depend on the sensor).

The AIBU is AIBU to be pissed off with DH for totally refusing that he is partly responsible and that it was a stupid place to leave the lawnmower.

I'm pissed off because he has form for not being good at admitting he is wrong and this, despite being petty and no big deal in terms of damage done, is really bloody annoying.

As far as he's concerned it was 100% my fault. I accept that I made a driver error but I just want him to admit that what he did was silly and the chances were that I wouldn't see the lawnmower, especially as I couldn't possibly anticipate it being there and that he was silly for leaving it there. I'm not asking for much just a "oh shit Beach, I wasn't thinking, oh well lucky there isn't really any damage done, lesson to us both, etc"

AIBU ?

Not very likely but someone breaks down and walks to your house with their child to use your phone /get a drink of water. This actually happened to a friend who lives in the middle of nowhere (it was actually a random dehydrated dog who she almost hit with the car but the person did have a child with them)

DH is sitting in the driveway doing something.

Delivery guy parks van a little way off and is standing there getting his automatic thingy out.

You should check behind before you drive anywhere however unlikely the eventuality is someone could be there and it's much better just to double check like you're supposed to rather than explain why they wouldn't normally have been there.

That said it was a stupid place for him to leave it.

Not very likely but someone breaks down and walks to your house with their child to use your phone /get a drink of water.

And leaves their child playing outside in a parking space unsupervised? Bear in mind that this hypothetical child would have to be very small to have escaped being seen by OP or detected by the parking sensor.

Thank you for all your posts. I totally agree that if there had been a child the outcome could have been a whole lot more serious.

At the same time, considering that the only children in the vicinity were in the car with me, I would have seriously questioned the parenting of any child that was able to arrive unsupervised to my house, let alone be hanging around at the back of my, in the middle of nowhere, closed off from surrounding countryside parking space.

Of course, as a driver you are 100% responsible for what you do with your car. Which is why there was so little damage done, because I backed in very very slowly, as I always do, cos I'm careful like that.

I hope that all the posters on this thread who have pointed out to that I could have backed into a child are really really careful drivers and it is reassuring to find out that a lot of people are so certain that they would not have made the mistake I made.

And I repeat, said area is not a driveway. It is not the access to our house. People do not walk on it in order to access the house or garden.

I love everyone getting riled up over a hypothetical child OP how could you?! I bet you frequently run over children and small animals!

I agree your husband was partly to blame, and he would say you were wrong even if the roles were reversed!

I have a similar problem where I park after my commute. There are short boulders. Tall enough to cause some damage under the bumpers but not tall enough to be picked up by the sensors.
I know they're there but I can't see them, sos I have to use other points of reference to reverse park.

Anyway... Children don't tend to behave like lawnmowers.
Although it's always possible that someone had left a baby in a basket with a note for your husband to find.

So if you HAD seen this cunningly concealed lawnmower, you wouldn't have been able to park properly without driving partially into space, stopping (leaving end of car hanging out of space) getting out and moving lawnmower, getting back in and driving fully into the space.
That makes your DH unreasonable.

I'm with you on this one OP, my partner moved our black bin and left it half way on our drive so when I came back at night i didnt see it and reversed into it. Men have no common sense sometimes lol it's one of them where you have to let it lie I'm afraid