Parking: thinking logically, are those of us with drives (and who use them) the biggest CFs of all?!

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

I love a good parking thread as much as anybody, but as I was reading the one the other day (by the man with the upset wife), it got me thinking.

As we all know, nobody has any more right to use the space on the public road in front of their own house than any other driver of a taxed and insured vehicle does. As we always affirm with one MN accord, if you want your own guaranteed space, you have to buy or rent a house with a drive.

HOWEVER, by having a drive, that then means that nobody else is legally allowed to park in front of it. Therefore, the upshot is that a potential parking space on the public road effectively ends up being reserved exclusively for your household's sole use (apart from by moving traffic passing across it). Added to which, it's an unwritten rule (never challenged AFAIK) that, if there are no yellow lines or white H-marks there, YOU can park across it as you're only potentially blocking yourself/your own household in.

Ergo, you've bagged yourself the legal right to your own exclusively reserved parking space on the public road, just because of the layout of your property and the fact that the building itself is set back sufficiently from the road - whether you park in that space, use it for access or both; or indeed if you don't have a car or any driving visitors and so it remains permanently empty and reserved for your exclusive (non)-use. If you hadn't had a property sized and laid out in such a way to allow off-road parking (and possibly paid a one-off fee to the council to drop the kerb), there would have been another parking space (maybe two) on the road available for anybody and everybody to use - first come, first served.

Is this fair? Is it those of us with drives who are actually the biggest, most selfish CFs of all - all the while congratulating ourselves for being self-sufficient and considerate by not territorially taking up a space on the road like those without drives?!?!

I understand that Lambeth Council in London is going to build a block of 30 flats in a road that is already over-occupied with parking. They have simply said that the residents won't need parking!

PP is not taking anything from them because they didn't own it in the first place.

Before the PP got a driveway the neighbours had the right to park there. Now they don't. So yes, something has been taken from them, not ownership but right of use.

Before the PP got a driveway the neighbours had the right to park there. Now they don't. So yes, something has been taken from them, not ownership but right of use.

I take your point but that doesn't mean the PP has done anything wrong or is a CF for paying to reserve her space, which she is entitled to do.

It's a bit like not being able to get a table in a popular restaurant because they've all been reserved months in advance. Annoying but you just need to find somewhere else unfortunately 🤷‍♀️

Also I thought the PP was talking about paying for a reserved parking space, not creating a drive? Could be wrong though.

I don't think the restaurant analogy stands up. It's more like someone reserving a table in perpetuity at a popular restaurant, whether they're going to use it or not.

Why should people be able to store their private property on the road for free? Everyone pays council tax regardless of whether they have a car to store or not. VED pays for pollution, as dies fuel tax

So what if I stored my belongings in a garden shed on the road - don’t you think it would be moved - yet I could buy a car and store belongings inside it and if it’s electric it’s be free storage

Maybe so, but none of that money goes to the neighbours to compensate them for the inconvenience of you "reserving" a space on the public road.

I pay taxes for schools but don’t get anything extra for not having a child in school - schools are free at point of use, so are roads but you don’t have any rights to store stuff on the roads for free

I take your point but that doesn't mean the PP has done anything wrong or is a CF for paying to reserve her space, which she is entitled to do.

It's a bit like not being able to get a table in a popular restaurant because they've all been reserved months in advance. Annoying but you just need to find somewhere else unfortunately

Nobody else has paid a legally-enforceable fee upfront to be allowed to use all restaurant tables in the country, though. All of the tables (and the establishment) are privately owned by the restaurant proprietor, so it is up to them if they want to allow reservations and turn others away whilst risking empty tables if those booking them don't turn up or if they want to make it a free-for-all, in which case their tables might also stay empty if nobody decides to come, having made no previous commitment.

if it’s electric it’s be free storage

At the moment it's free. But, as time passes and there are more electric cars, there WILL be some kind of road tax - the Govt will need to make up the money from somewhere when there are fewer petrol/diesel cars on the road paying it.

All this talk of "free" reserved parking on roads is nonsense. Loads of roads have double yellow lines are other parking restrictions which prevent drive owners parking their cars on the road in front of their drives. It's up to local councils to decide who and when vehicles can park on roads in their areas - they have the powers to restrict or eliminate parking.

Nobody else has paid a legally-enforceable fee upfront to be allowed to use all restaurant tables in the country,

Neither do drivers pay any fees to use the road/highways

Drivers pay to pollute
They pay tax on fuel
They don’t pay to use the highway

Why should people be able to store their private property on the road for free? Everyone pays council tax regardless of whether they have a car to store or not. VED pays for pollution, as dies fuel tax

So what if I stored my belongings in a garden shed on the road - don’t you think it would be moved - yet I could buy a car and store belongings inside it and if it’s electric it’s be free storage

You could just as easily ask why people should be able to move their private property on the roads, though. A car parked on a public road takes up the same amount of space at any one time as that same car moving on the public roads. The parked car is also not causing any pollution, unlike a moving car, so you could argue that it's more virtuous to park it up than to use it.

You're right about using a car or van as a tax-free storage facility on the public road - that is indeed a loophole that's open to abuse; but considering the cost of buying a car and depreciation (if not a worthless old banger - less likely if it's an electric car) and the cost of insuring and MoTing it (also paying for any necessary repairs to pass), it would work out as quite an expensive shed.

I have a driveway that can accommodate 3 cars without any being blocked in or 7/8 cars with all but one being blocked in. My drive entrance is less wide than the length of most cars. It's 'kind of 'r' shaped. No one can park on my side of the street anyway as there is a busy double bike lane between the road and footpath.

Moving cars 80% of the time have just one person inside, they cause great congestion and it’s a pretty ridiculous set up

Most people round here have both a drive and a garage. They have nearly all either converted the garage into another room, or store so much stuff in it there is no room for a car.
So they are the CFs really, because they would have had space for a car that now has to take up space on the road...

Drivers pay to pollute
They pay tax on fuel
They don’t pay to use the highway

That is technically true, but where would drivers be using that highly-taxed fuel if not the public roads? Sticking with the restaurant analogy, you don't strictly pay anything to use the table, crockery, cutlery, toilets, heating etc as the price you pay is purely levied on the food and drinks you choose to order - but nobody would ever pay restaurant prices if they had to sit on a cold floor and eat it straight off the carpet with their fingers.

No need to pay for fossil fuel, your choice as there are many other modes of transport and other fuel to use

Better if people did stop using fossil fuel, as not only would the air be cleaner but 40000 lives would be prolonged each year and those deaths would be avoided

@ivykaty44

No need to pay for fossil fuel, your choice as there are many other modes of transport and other fuel to use

There aren’t many other modes of transport unless you live in an urban area. Nor is an electric car an option unless you have a drive so we’re right back where we started.

alsohuman, you're going to struggle in a few years tine then - fossil fuel cars will cease to be sold in 2035

Obviously the restaurant analogy is not perfect but my point was that the PP presumably moved into a house where she had the option to rent a reserved parking space on the street/nearby, so she decided to do that. That's not being a CF or taking anything from anyone; they were available to anyone to pay for, she just happened to be the person who said yes. Other people on the same street can't then be annoyed at her or call her a CF for doing that. Of course they can be annoyed at the general system, set up etc.

I don't think restaurants would be to happy if people went and used their tables and chairs for free and just sat around taking up space - do you?

I don't think restaurants would be to happy if people went and used their tables and chairs for free and just sat around taking up space - do you?

No, not at all - but they will only let you use them IF you buy food and/or drinks from them. They won't have a price to charge you for sitting and chatting at their table without ordering anything, even if you asked.

Similarly, the government wouldn't be able to charge drivers all of the tax that they do (on VED and fuel), not to mention the VAT on car repairs, if there were no public road system for people to use their vehicles on in the first place.

The amount of tax you pay for VED has indeed been levied based on pollution for the last couple of decades, but as has already been said, that's going to come to an end when electric cars are the majority or only option. They'll charge people per mile travelled, maybe plus a 'standing charge' ownership fee.

the government have already said a pay per mile style charge will be levied after 3000 miles

roads are free at point of use, just like NHS restaurants aren't free at point of use - you have to pay - so tbh confused about restaurants being used to describe highway users

I paid more for my house with a driveway

The advantage to your community of you having off-road parking is that you won't be causing congestion on the streets, (a) with your own car; or (b) with the car that might have otherwise parked in the space where your drive is.

The aim isn't to cram as many cars in as possible!