Page 3 | If you have a driveway use it !!!

MrsToothyBitch · 09/11/2020 09:07

YANBU. Road space is at a premium and surely cars are safer on drives? It's really cheeky!

I am a nervous driver anyway so when I was buying my home I only considered places with drives and/or designated spaces. Had a row with one local EA after my "parking only" search unearthed a lovely flat with no sign of a drive but "a very quiet street round the corner where you can usually get a space". She considered that to constitute "parking". I considered it to be misrepresentation and her to be a stupid bitch.

TurquoiseDragon · 09/11/2020 09:10

If I had a drive, I'd use it. Much safer, no fighting for space, etc.

CakeRequired · 09/11/2020 09:11

@Tararararara

That's just weird. Surely it should be cheaper with driveway parking? Less likely for someone to hit your car then. Maybe it's a theft thing?

LakieLady · 09/11/2020 09:17

I park on the road when I can, despite having a drive, for several reasons.

Our road is narrow with parking on one side. Because of the parked cars, there's no way you can see if it's safe to pull out of the drive until you're so far out you'd have been hit if anyone was coming along at more than a waliking pace. Residents know this and take care, but delivery drivers fly along here like they're at Le Mans.

The drive is narrow and you have to park right up to the fence to get the car in (can't go any further to the right as there's a kerb up to the lawn). So if you have loads of stuff that requires you open the nearside doors you have to unload in the street, then put the car in the drive.

The drive is steep and the tailgate drops on your head when you unload from the back, because of the angle.

Getting in and out when the car's on the drive means standing on the muddy lawn, and the steepness of the drive means it's very painful for my arthritic, ligament-torn knee.

And parking outside my house means that the BF of the woman over the road can't park there, he leaves at 5.30 in the morning and has to slam various doors of his car at least 7 times in total - I've counted!

SimonJT · 09/11/2020 09:18

My last flat had a driveway (converted house), it was a proper driveway, dropped curb. I started parking on the road because every time I used the driveway I would be blocked in by another vehicle. The street was all houses converted into flats, unless you saw someone getting in/out the car it was impossible to find the owner to move it. My favourite was being blocked in for over two weeks, that wouldn’t usually be a problem, but I had a holiday booked and I needed my car to get to the holiday cottage and drive while on holiday. The council wouldn’t do anything about the car so I had to pay for a hire car for my holiday.

Not long after that I bought a space in a key fob entry residential carpark.

LizaE · 09/11/2020 09:19

So where we live parking is awful as most houses have a cars. The one thing that winds me up is the people who have a driveway yet park on the road. Not just little driveways either . So they then take up parking and other people have to battle to find a space . I know there are bigger things going on and parking outside your own house isn’t a given right but I just find this very selfish and annoying . Rant over will now go and refill my wind glass

You are definitely not being unreasonable!

Elvesinquarantine · 09/11/2020 10:10

I have parked outside. Car was keyed. Ds parked there. Tyres let down. She wouldn't even believe I lived in the Street at first!. She took photos of me parking in the street..
She was hidden in full view under a table!!

Nosleeptilteenagers · 09/11/2020 10:17

A lot of people can’t/won’t reverse park.

By me there is cars parked one side all the along spare from two houses, opposite each other, with crap all over their drives. one side, a chopped down tree and an old sofa, been there for years and the other side has a perennial skip as he’s a builder. They both park blocking their drives, blocking the pavements totally and making the road tiny to squeeze through with a car. I swear at them every time it drive/walk past but am too passive to say anything, as are the rest of my street as it’s been like this since we moved in 3 years ago!

People are lazy and selfish is my take on most things these days.

coconuttyhead · 09/11/2020 10:39

YANBU! I have neighbours exactly like this - they are the most self-entitled arrogant arseholes I have ever come across. Multiple 4x4’s, large drive - but choose to partially park over my small drive. I have asked both of them separately why they do it and have got aggressive responses each time.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 09/11/2020 12:41

torquewench - Ah, it sounds like they most definitely don't fall within the possible scenario I suggested, then!

Our road is narrow with parking on one side. Because of the parked cars, there's no way you can see if it's safe to pull out of the drive until you're so far out you'd have been hit if anyone was coming along at more than a waliking pace.

Some people have those big convex mirror on a pole at the edge of their drive - even opposite if you can get the council's permission - which I presume make the blind-spot issue much easier. Not that that would solve your other health-related difficulties in using your drive, though.

DynamoKev · 09/11/2020 12:53

Some people have those big convex mirror on a pole at the edge of their drive
We have one of those due to our neighbours fucing ridiculous Holly Bush and Laurel Hedge. People come flying up our road so the mirror is essential.

DimplesToadfoot · 09/11/2020 13:20

I have a driveway, I'd be breaking my rental contract and could potentially be evicted if I used it. its a good job I don't have a car

DieSchottin93 · 09/11/2020 13:50

I think it depends. My car is sometimes parked on the road because we are a three adult household with a car each and we have a weird shaped driveway, so sometimes I move my car onto the road if I was last home the night before but one of my parents needs to go out before I go to work in the afternoon. Currently all three cars are parked off the driveway (my dad's is actually parked up at a lay-by round the corner) because we're having work done to our garden so our driveway is taken up by a huge van and trailer, as well as a Portaloo and cement mixer. However every house in our street has their own driveway so it's not like we're making things awkward for our neighbours.

LostAcre · 09/11/2020 14:17

I do think that, as a general rule, it seems daft and potentially selfish to have a driveway and not use it. (This doesn’t apply to people who park on the road because they usually get blocked in when parking on their own drive or similar)

One of my neighbours does this. Most of the houses on my road have room for one or two cars on the driveway. This neighbour has a long driveway that can comfortably fit their 2 cars and their work van. But they rarely have more than one vehicle on the driveway at once. They usually park 2 of the vehicles on the side of the road, and usually close to a junction which makes it tricky to pull out. I don’t really understand why they don’t park on their driveway all the time.

movingonup20 · 09/11/2020 14:47

I'm having issues getting into my drive, if all 3 cars are parked opposite I can't turn in or out the next day. It's the builder of the estate's fault, an extra foot would have solved it

Original poster

Wineisrequired · 11/11/2020 18:46

@yellowcatss I just find it a bit odd especially as there are so many people who come home from work and have to battle for a parking space. I appreciate it’s not the law that you must use your driveway but if you have one why would you not use it 🤔 I’m starting to think he does it to get a reaction as he’s fallen out with lots it the neighbours apparently over parking and bonfires .

OP posts:

IliveonCoffee · 11/11/2020 19:15

Lots of reasons.

Sometimes it looks like we're not using the driveway because my partner has gone to work, and my car is on the road. We do alternate who ends up on the drive, but I'm not moving my car specially.

We have a garage and when we can try and put, normally mine, in it. I cant get it out though, so it's always a faff (because I'm fat and the garage is narrow).

We make sure to do this when we have visitors so they dont take up the whole street!

Garages and driveways are actually poorly designed in a lot of areas. They were either built for smaller cars, or front gardens unceremoniously dug up for a drive so people in some way or another struggle with getting on or playing musical cars to get the other persons out.

I'd love to afford a house where we could park 2 side by side with no faff but that creates compromises in other areas, and many people just won't prioritise room for their car over an extra room in the house, a newer kitchen, less major work.

GypsyWanderer · 11/11/2020 19:32

We have a large drive way but don’t drive. The neighbour has 3 cars, all in their drive own drive way and a work van that is always parked across out drive. We don’t use our drive but we use the alleyway to the back garden as my husband cycles. It’s also a right of way so it needs to be kept free at all times yet he blocks it with his van, including the pavement so people have to walk on the road to get passed. Before March lockdown our family couldn’t use our drive so had to park up the road and walk down, including my 82 year old MIL because everyone else parks on the street too.

It is such a bugbare (bugbear?) of mine and it’s took about 3 years to not get pee’d off every day about it. We have asked them to move it several times. But the woman is so hostile that we’ve given up.

MyPersona · 11/11/2020 19:40

We live in an old house with no drive, in a road of similar houses. There are a few which had front gardens which have been converted. Opposite us is one such place with a 3 car drive and a garage which the daughter uses to run a business from. She lives in the next village in a house with a drive. She keeps her land rover on the road outside my house and comes and goes in her work van usually. She also has a staff member using a parking space on the road all day 5 days a week who often parks carelessly taking up 2 spaces. Occasionally she goes off in the Land Rover but often it doesn’t move for weeks. I’ve begun to actually hate her. And don’t get me started on the new nursery, with at least 7 staff cars and their entirely empty car park. Our next door neighbour got pissed off and parked on their front last week and when the owner came knocking on all the doors we all said sorry no idea who’s car it is. Selfish fuckers have ruined a residential road.

Bwlch · 11/11/2020 19:50

That's just weird. Surely it should be cheaper with driveway parking? Less likely for someone to hit your car then. confused Maybe it's a theft thing?

It's a damage thing. People are more likely to drive into gateposts or dent their cars putting the bins out, for example., than when parked on the road.

GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat · 11/11/2020 19:54

GypsyWanderer is there any chance of the council painting H-bars on the road across the dropped kerb driveways and getting drivers ticketed for parking over them?

Hostile neighbours are awful

GypsyWanderer · 11/11/2020 20:02

@GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat

GypsyWanderer is there any chance of the council painting H-bars on the road across the dropped kerb driveways and getting drivers ticketed for parking over them?

Hostile neighbours are awful

I can’t imagine the council having a budget but I’ll look into it as I’ve never thought about it before.

My DH did complain to the company the van belongs to after they still didn’t move it (I told him not to because I hate confrontation!) and they took it seriously but a few days later the woman came around shouting at me accusing one of my boys of climbing over her fence and breaking into her garden. He was 11 at the time playing out the front with his brothers with me watching through the window. Since then I’ve just steered clear of them!

ColaandBru · 11/11/2020 20:15

If people are going to park on the road it should at least be in front of their own driveway so as that thry are not hogging the equivalent of two spaces. If they don't do that and want cheaper insurance and a play space for their pets they should raise the kerb and let everyone park there. So annoying where I live!

Pimmsypimms · 11/11/2020 20:23

I get you op. Our last house was on a main road without parking. We were quite lucky in that we didn't have to battle so much for parking most of the time, but it was a pisser when I'd got a full boot of shopping and had to park way up the street and lug it all home.
We now Have a drive and whilst it can be a bit of a pain moving the cars around in the mornings, I'd never park on the road as I know that the people without drives will struggle to find a spot. I think that it just doesn't register for some people as they've never had to fight for a spot!

Tararararara · 11/11/2020 21:39

GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat you can't get ticketed for parking over white H bars, they're advisory only. We have them across our drive yet dickhead neighbor still parks over them. I bet our other neighbors hate us for taking up a road space, but I can't risk not being able to get off the drive.