For "blocking" next door's drive for 10 seconds?

[flyingturtles]

Selling things on fb. Man comes to collect an item, so was at my door for nano-seconds. He parked at the end of my drive, with perhaps half his engine overlapping next door's drive, while he collected from my doorstep.

Next door arrived home and sat behind this car constantly sounding the horn, then the passenger got out and started swearing and shouting about not being able to use his drive and how we were breaking the law.

The entire street was vacant of cars, so they could have either parked elsewhere or turned around and entered the drive from the opposite direction. His drive was actually still accessible. Or waited.

Next door actually went back out again five minutes later, so parking on the road for those minutes wouldn't have hurt either.

Just feel there was no need for such a drama, and the shouting continued after the man had left too.

(Just to add, they block me IN on many, many occasions. When they are happy to park on the road.)

Your visitor was BU and so was your neighbour.

That's very much how it is Princess.

Ok, my visitor was BU. But surely the reaction was unnecessary? The amount of time and energy spent shouting, even after visitor had left, took much more time then it would have taken to manoeuvre into their drive in the first place.

But it wasn't a few seconds was it. Yes, it is thoroughly antisocial to do this.

Your neighbour shouldn't have lost their shit so quickly but context is everything. For example, our drive is wider than most the others on the road so our is the drive that delivery drivers always park across the top of to deliver to half the street. Each driver probably thinks "ah it's only a couple of minutes" but when it's multiple drivers all day long the picture is quite the different...

For this reason I am a bit militant about this kind of thing. Wouldn't have lost my rag the way neighbour did though.

Ok, my visitor was BU. But surely the reaction was unnecessary?

It doesn’t sound very refined, but if you don’t give people reason to be angry you avoid this kind of thing.

OP
This is Mumsnet.
Blocking a driveway is like not breastfeeding.
Or not observing every single aspect of lockown.
Get your tin hat.

Any kind of blocked = YABU

We have a neighbour just like you... it's really annoying if you can't get to your own drive!!
Just tell people not to block/ move the car.

As for your neighbor's reaction, I bet it wasn't the first time this has happened.

@emmcan

We live in a cul-de-sac and people are forever blocking my drive. They might only do it for a minute each but the cumulative effect means that when anyone does it now it really winds me up. It’s so rude. They always seem to do it just at the very second I want to go out too so I have to knock on everyone’s doors trying to find out whose car it is. I shouldn’t have to do that to get on or off my own driveway. So I guess I sympathise with your neighbour...

It wasn't a visitor. It was a stranger. Asking him to move his car would have taken just as long.
And no, I don't usually do such things or have lots of visitors (and it's been lockdown!)
His drive wasn't actually blocked, just in their mind. They could have reversed in no problem.

We also have a neighbour like you. I've paid a premium to buy a house with a drive but you think you can block it and I could park elsewhere. I would put money on the fact that you do this a lot (as my neighbour does) and they just lost their shit this one time.

If he went back put a couple of minutes later he was probably in a rush

No. I don't do it a lot. THEY do it a lot, and refuse to move when I ask them.

Your visitor could have parked more considerately. No problem.

He could have actually got into the drive, just from the other direction.

Why should he?

Why couldn't your visitor park a few feet further and avoid blocking a drive?

By law you can park in front of someone's drive unless they have a garage. People are just being OTT

What a miserably impatient and intolerant people we have become.Your neighbour is a tosser with clearly no respect for others
And what if he was desperste to use the toilet? You don't know do you?

I sadly more often get home desperate to just open the door and get on the loo. If someone blocked my drive and I was wiggling like a mad person desperately holding in just those few extra minute, yep, I'd lose it.

You never know other people's circumstances. The point is that the other guy had no need to block the drive end of.

I used to live near a creche. The amount of people who would think nothing of parking across my drive for 'ten seconds' would make you scream. There were occasions where someone would tell me to wait and get out of their car to bring in the child rather than move somewhere else. Being blocked was a near daily occurance.

For all those reasons, I can't be unbiased about this. There is no way there was 'nanoseconds' involved.

I don't blame the neighbour.

Neighbour is a twat. If they had time to rudely rant, they had enough time to ask politely if they would be long/could they move.

Stranger was obviously looking out for your house number, overshot by a few inches and decided that picking up of your doorstep wouldn’t inconvenience anyone.

@Leflic

Neighbour is a twat. If they had time to rudely rant, they had enough time to ask politely if they would be long/could they move.

Stranger was obviously looking out for your house number, overshot by a few inches and decided that picking up of your doorstep wouldn’t inconvenience anyone.

And yet it did...

He was walking back to his car as the neighbours pulled up behind him. I don't even think he knew what was happening!

I hate driveway blockers. Next doors house is side in to the road and was a pub. It has two huge driveways on which you can easily get four or more cars on each driveway plus two double garages. - yet for some bizarre reason they park on my tiny drive blocking me in and are always surprised when I tell them to shift their bloody vehicle now. My driveway is the size of an old mini and has two huge signs saying ‘no parking’ . But apparently my cats can levitate over a dive bar gate and their cat to get out.

I’m just willing DH to bring home his 48ft long hgv and park it on their drive .... grrrr

@Leflic

Neighbour is a twat. If they had time to rudely rant, they had enough time to ask politely if they would be long/could they move.

Stranger was obviously looking out for your house number, overshot by a few inches and decided that picking up of your doorstep wouldn’t inconvenience anyone.

I guess the fundamental difference between people is that I, and others on this thread, would take a look around and consider whether we might be inconveniencing someone. I sometimes wish selfish people would just admit that yes, they do what suits them best and don't really care if it inconveniences others but they prefer to pretend to themselves that they're not inconveniencing anyone.