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?!?!

No I don’t think drives are the problem, down my mums street they have big drives and a lot of the neighbours share. Say if one house only has 1 car but the neighbour has 3, a lot let the neighbour share their drive.
My street on the other hand no opertunity fit any drives and it a busy street houses are huge so most are rooms/flats. It’s a nightmare trying to get parked, I think limiting cars to houses would be more helpful. Or painted spaces and you rent a space, not necessarily right outside your house but it would mean you can go out in the evenings and not have to park down the next street.

But if say, one household has two cars or more as most do these days, then they will have one on the drive and one outside, not two outside, so they are still reducing the amount of parking on the road.

I think that people who own drives and don’t use them are bigger CFs.

We have one set of neighbours. Their drive can easily fit 3 cars on it, one in front of another (long front garden).
They have 2 cars and 1 work van.

But because they don’t like shuffling their cars around when they go out, they typically only put 1 vehicle on the drive, and park the other 2 on the road.

It’s a nightmare trying to get parked, I think limiting cars to houses would be more helpful.

Do you mean limiting based on what will fit in the space in front of your house or that people who live in flats or bedsits shouldn't be allowed to have cars?!

My neighbours must agree with you OP because they called the council to complain when we dropped our kerb, unfortunately for them we’d already got the councils permission but they still came round to check it was a good job.

By the way, I have found that not having a driveway increases social interaction. Having to walk to the end of my street, or round the corner, to get into my car, means that I often meet neighbours on the way and say hi or stop to chat. This wouldn't happen if I had a driveway, and definitely outweighs not having my own parking space.

I also like looking out of the window at my crabapple tree and flowering hedge, not looking at a car (front gardens here aren't big enough for both).

You're right OP; this has proved a problem in my city street of mainly terraced houses, some of which have front gardens just about big enough to create a parking space.
Over the last few years, many of the neighbours, driven to distraction by never bring able to find a space, have succumbed to paying the council for a dropped kerb. It's great for them of course but is actually kind of selfish when parking is at such a premium and I am surprised the council still allow it. When you have a driveway, it means that the road space is permanently unavailable for parking whether you're home or not. People who don't have a drive vacate the spaces outside their house when they go out, leaving them free for someone else's visitor. So by creating a drive you're compounding the Parkin problem for everyone else.

I once lived in a street where all the houses backed on to a set of garages and small car park, accessible from the back gardens. Each house had a garage and the space in front of the garage door to park in.

My neighbours still parked on the street because it was faster.

I have thought this in my area, where the houses are about as wide as a car is long. Since I started driving, about half a dozen houses have turned their front gardens into parking spaces. It's become less and less common that I can park even within sight of my front window, and parking directly outside is once in a blue moon.

But if the council turned round and said people couldn't have parking spaces any more, that would just entrench the unfairness. And when electric cars become the norm, off-street parking will be even more important.

I will say that I would in the most strenuous terms oppose any nearby development that doesn't include adequate parking. (I'm not sure there's anywhere this would feasibly happen, but still).

PS: Also, on my street there's parking space marked along the side of the road. So no problem for two normal cars to pass each other even with a parked car on either side. Though vans and trucks would need to find a gap to pass in.

We pay road tax to put our car on the public roads

Road tax doesn't even cover maintenance of the roads. It certainly doesn't cover the cost of the land, which is a public asset.

Yes and no, really depends on the area. My old house is on a busy road so nobody parks on it (we have drives that fit 3-4 cars) my new one is a new estate with nowhere near enough street spaces so we park in front of the garage stacked, it's designed for everyone to have off road parking

We pay road tax to put our car on the public roads

Road tax was abolished in 1937, so better check your not still paying it 😂 how old are you? 😳

Road tax doesn't even cover maintenance of the roads. It certainly doesn't cover the cost of the land, which is a public asset.

All the other taxes and duties paid by motorists far outweigh the costs of road maintenance. It's not just road fund licence (car tax), it's fuel duties, VAT on fuel, VAT on car sales, VAT on car repairs, tolls, insurance premium tax. When electric cars are the norm, there's going to be one hell of a hole in Govt revenue. Most of the cost of petrol/diesel is fuel duty and VAT - all that's going to disappear. Rather than motorists subsidising other public sector spending, we really will be moving to a case where everyone is subsidising the roads.

The true cost of drivers is that everyone else subsides private car use

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/government-challenged-over-motoring-myths-real-cost-of-roads-far-higher-than-ministers-say-transport-1416229.html

ipayroadtax.com/no-such-thing-as-road-tax/when-will-drivers-start-paying-the-full-costs-of-motoring/

stopclimatechange.net/fileadmin/content/documents/move-green/The_true_costs_of_cars_EN.pdf

So the less cars on the roads the less damage they do and the less everyone else had to pay towards them, there are still 33% without private cars

People who have a drive but still park on the road are the worst, unless they park over their drive.

@AnnaBanana333 I’d disagree the worst drivers are those on the pavement parking, blocking people walking safely or driving towards them & expecting them to jump of the pavement so they can park

Are you my NDN, @MrMenGoSwimming?

I never park on my drive if I can avoid it. DP hates me backing in (the drive is steep and he says it burns the clutch out reversing up it) and it's too narrow for me to get out if I go in forward - about 9" between the open door and the fence. I also have a knee problem which makes it very painful getting out on a slope, and on one occasion it gave way and I landed on the lawn.

We may get the drive resurfaced if we still have some money left after doing all the other work the house needs, and if we do, we'll widen it so we can both drive in forwards. And my knee may have been sorted by then, with a bit of luck.

The true cost of drivers is that everyone else subsides private car use

Everybody’s subsidised in some way. I don’t have school age children, I’m subsidising other people’s. I’m never ill, I subsidise other people’s health care. Even if someone doesn’t own a car, their groceries are delivered to the store on the roads. Everything we buy reaches us by road. Nothing’s as simple as it seems.

People who have a drive but still park on the road are the worst, unless they park over their drive

We used to park over our drive, but our NDN asked us not to as it makes it difficult for her to get out of her drive. Even if we park half over our drive, it doesn't leave a space for another car, because other NDN's son leaves his car there 90% of the time.

He lives in the town centre, where permit parking operates, and has a work van. He's too tight to pay for a second permit for his car, so parks on the street outside his parents' house. Every few days, he drives up in his van, leaves the van here and goes off in his car.

@LakieLady hehe! My neighbours don't have grass and our houses aren't on a slope, so it can't be you . Hope your knee gets sorted soon too.

@emilybrontescorsett

I know of someone who was so sick and tired of a neighbour parking their car outside his house that he removed the wall and had it made into a huge driveway, therefore stopping the neighbour from parking there. The neighbour did have his own large drive but chose to ignore it and park outside someone else's house whilst he could.

This happens at my son's house - neighbour has a drive big enough for two cars end to end down the side of the house - but chooses to park mounted on the kerb right outside my son's front room window, not even outside his own - it is bizarre.

We have a garage and a driveway big enough for 2 cars so have space for 3 cars.

Our neighbour has the same and his driveway is right next to ours so we can take 6 cars off the road between us but only take up about 1.5 road parking spaces between us

One of our other neighbours further down the road is a parking CF.

He has the same size drive as us but has an absolutely massive motor home parked on it, meaning he parks his other 3 cars all over the road

Our road is a tiny estate and the road is very narrow. Everyone who lives further down the road has to drive over their neighbours front gardens to get passed his bloody cars.

MIL lives in a terrace in a tiny street with limited parking. Her partner normally has a car and 2 or more vans parked in the street. That’s more cf than having a drive to park them all on!

I will say that I would in the most strenuous terms oppose any nearby development that doesn't include adequate parking.

I've heard of several local 'initiatives' where the council seem to think that, if they deliberately ban drives on new developments, it will suddenly make people able to go everywhere by walking, bike or public transport - almost as if nobody ever has any real need or even desire for a car, but if they have a drive, they just get one as an ornament to put on it!

Some local councils will put enclosed needle bins in public toilets, because they figure that the small percentage of the population who are drug users will only leave them somewhere more dangerous if there isn't provision made for them; yet for something as common, necessary and everyday as cars, they don't seem to understand some very simple basic principles.