Why do people with driveways choose to park on the street? AKA my first parking thread

[NicFairy]

We’ve recently moved house. Old house was a row of terraces. Either side of us had dropped curbs and driveways. They both always parked on the road in front of the dropped curb, leaving us to parallel park into our space in the middle. Par for the course with a terraced street but would frequently have us thinking “If I had a driveway, why wouldn’t I use it?!”

Fast forward to new house with a driveway, yay!! But again, seem to be once more next to people who don’t want to park on their driveways?

We can park one car on our drive. The other half is lawned (will be eventually replacing this so we can park 2 cars). Next door neighbours can park 2 cars side by side on their drive, with no impact on blocking each other in. But do they do this? No.

They park one car on the drive, and one on the street in between our houses where there is space for one car to park. Meanwhile we are left parking one car on the dropped curb in front of the one on the drive, with me and DH swapping the cars around when whichever one of us who has blocked in the other needs to get out.

They also frequently park the second car closer to our dropped curb than to theirs. So today, their back wheel is right up against the end of our dropped curb, with a metre of curb left beyond their front bumper on ‘their’ side of the curb. Days like today make it slightly more ‘fun’ to get our cars in and out of our drive as the space is quite tight.

I know I will probably never bring this up with them. I’ll probably just enjoy obsessively watching how they park their cars every day for the next however long, and assuming that the only possible answer for why they would do this is some sort of assertion on dominance that they assume rightly that we will probably never challenge, it is a space anyone can park in after all, it belongs to neither of us.

But why wouldn’t someone want to park in their drive? Can mumsnet enlighten me, or do my otherwise friendly new neighbours actually hate us?

Public road. Personal choice.

We have a neighbour who cannot park her car so leaves it on the road for her husband to put on the drive, trouble is she can’t even park on the road properly, which make it difficult for us to get off our drive.
If you can’t park you shouldn’t be driving.

@WellTidy

cigar den = garden!

@WellTidy can we amalgamate you cigar den and my gin den ?

Rented house, narrow drive on a slope with three foot drop at one side, broken gate/Holly Bush on the other. I can reverse the car on if I break the gate à bit more to get it to stay open but because of the narrow width of the drive and the evil Holly, I can't get out of the car. So that's why. Pointless bloody drive.

We park on the street if we have guests, if we're expecting work men or large deliveries, or when people have parked too close to the drive (frequently) or have parked directly opposite the drive but badly (looking at you neighbour at 127) as there isn't enough room to back out properly.

Our road is very bad for parking and people seem to think the solution to this it to park in ways which mean our driveway is not accessible so we also have to park on the road. Due to narrowness of the road and the angle of the road to our driveway, we can only reverse in to it if one side is free or someone hasn't parked opposite. It's very annoying! I'd prefer to use my drive.

@NicFairy People park on the road/street when they have got a driveway, because they are selfish, entitled, arrogant, self-absorbed arseholes who think the world revolves around them.

Such bullshit to suggest that people don't park on the driveway because they find it difficult to get on and off it. Fucking LEARN then. And if your driveway is narrow, GET IT WIDENED!

We had a narrow driveway when we moved to our little rural cottage, and couldn't fit our medium sized family saloon on it without great difficulty, so we paid someone to take part of the wall down on each side, to widen it by a total of 10" (5" each side.)

Why the hell wouldn't you? To say you don't park on your driveway because it's too narrow is bollox. Widen the driveway. And don't say you can't, because you can.

You get people on these kind of threads saying 'it's a public road, and people are entitled to park there if there are no parking restrictions.' So fucking what, if you are ALLOWED to do it? Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD! If you have a driveway, PARK ON IT.

What if EVERYONE said 'fuck it! I have a 2, 3, 4, car driveway, AND a garage, but I will park on the road, because it's 'easier' to get away when I need to, and heyyyy, everyone else does it?'

As I say, selfish, arrogant, entitled, self-absorbed arseholes, that's what people are who have a driveway, and STILL park on the road!

@littlepattilou I'll have a word with my landlord then...

I previously lived on a modern estate where every property had a drive but most only had room for one vehicle. My neighbours a few doors down started parking their car on the road. Why? Because the family opposite had a car and a van. They used to park their car on their drive but park their van outside my neighbours' house, instead of parking it outside their own house. They took the hint for a while but soon went back to doing it again so my neighbours went back to parking on the road. And so it went on.

Where I previously lived people often parked across my driveway so on days when I needed to use the car I tended to park across the drive to avoid being blocked in.

My current neighbours have a very large driveway that would easily fit about 5 cars. They have 2, but always park one outside my house. I can only assume this is to avoid them having to move cars around if anyone wants to go out. MIL is, for some reason, scared to park on our driveway so when she visits she parks on the road (in what I am sure they consider to be 'their' space). The glaring from them!!!

I don't use my drive as its round the back of the house in between our garage and the neighbours. It's so narrow that in order for me to open my door I'd have to leave no space on the passenger side so wouldn't be able to let the kids out.
I'd love a proper driveway at the front, I hate parking on the road.

[quote littlepattilou]@NicFairy People park on the road/street when they have got a driveway, because they are selfish, entitled, arrogant, self-absorbed arseholes who think the world revolves around them.

Such bullshit to suggest that people don't park on the driveway because they find it difficult to get on and off it. Fucking LEARN then. And if your driveway is narrow, GET IT WIDENED!

We had a narrow driveway when we moved to our little rural cottage, and couldn't fit our medium sized family saloon on it without great difficulty, so we paid someone to take part of the wall down on each side, to widen it by a total of 10" (5" each side.)

Why the hell wouldn't you? To say you don't park on your driveway because it's too narrow is bollox. Widen the driveway. And don't say you can't, because you can.

You get people on these kind of threads saying 'it's a public road, and people are entitled to park there if there are no parking restrictions.' So fucking what, if you are ALLOWED to do it? Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD! If you have a driveway, PARK ON IT.

What if EVERYONE said 'fuck it! I have a 2, 3, 4, car driveway, AND a garage, but I will park on the road, because it's 'easier' to get away when I need to, and heyyyy, everyone else does it?'

As I say, selfish, arrogant, entitled, self-absorbed arseholes, that's what people are who have a driveway, and STILL park on the road![/quote]
Ffs, we haven’t got a drive and I never get close to being as angry as that! It’s a public road, anyone can park on it. Just deal with it.

I park on the road. I could park inside my gate but there's no separation between that bit of ground and the rest of the garden, and I don't want DD playing all around a car. Also a rented house so we can't currently make changes.

I now feel extra good about it because of that rant from @littlepattilou, though. Blimey!

I'm in a similar house to @NatMoz - my drive is very narrow, and you have about 2" max clearance each side for the wing mirrors. You can't open the doors on the side nearest the fence once you're parked so you have let passengers in/out before you park. Having lived here for 28 years, I've got the hang of it.

It's so narrow that you have to get out onto the grass, which is often wet, muddy and slippery.

It's also got a fairly steep slope up from the road, and unless you get it right first time, it's hard to reverse up without making the clutch work really hard. My late DP was of the view that a clutch will last longer if we park on the road. If you've got shopping in the back, it often falls over and I have been known to have to crawl into the back to retrieve things that rolled right to the front (estate car).

But at the moment, my main reason is that I have some knee problems, and getting in and out of the car on the steep slope is incredibly difficult and painful.

The other thing that's handy though is that if I'm parked in the road, visitors can use the drive when there is no other space available.

My parents do this and then complain about parking issues in the street and not being able to get a space . They've never parked on their drive they keep the whirly gig there and use that as the reason why they don't use it .

Pretty much most people on our (very quiet, dead end) road do this but the funniest one is the people opposite us. They have a drive wide enough for 2 cars to be parked side by side with space to get in and out easily but one car is always on the road/kerb outside their house. If they leave in that car they will move the other car off their drive to the road and then shuffle the cars back when they return.
On the rare occasion I have noticed the space is empty I have been so tempted to move mine there but I am too lazy for such things. I assume the reason why they do it is so that no one else parks in front of their house.

We just use our drive for both cars seeing as we paid for a house with one.

@littlepattilou That's alright then - I could just have asked the Highways Agency and the local Council to create an extra little layby for me on a major arterial route so I've got space to pull up and back into the drive without holding up all the traffic. I could also have asked my landlords to take out spaces so as to not make the parking so narrow. Of course, that will push those cars into on-street parking but never mind, eh?

Our neighbours have two car drive which they never use - they keep the gate closed and their chihuahua on the drive. They park two extra hight, long wheelbase vans and a small car on the road - one extra tall van between our houses (semi detached) which renders our driveway dangerous to exit as it completely and utterly obstructs visibility. Their response to being told this and asked to park the small car instead of the van between the houses is that they want to ve able to see the van and it isn't illegal. No, just egotistical, unpleasant and antisocial. They are the only arseholes in the village.

I agree with littlepattilou. I've had several years of it and I'm fed up.

What I always wonder is, why don't councils incentivise the use and creation of drives? Take my street - every single house has massive, unused front gardens, the smallest of which could fit 2 cars with ease, some of them 4 or more. Why can't the council write to people to request they park in their bloody drives (I'd personally fine them for parking on the road!), and why not partly fund the conversion of unused front gardens into drives as an incentive to alleviate parking congestion?

As it is, everybody parks on the road, the road is relatively narrow, traffic is often held up and getting out of your drive when the neighbour opposite has left his car on the road (and his drive empty!) is a fucking nighmare. Everybody is a loser.

@littlepattilou, my front garden is higher than the level of my drive and rises more steeply. Widening the drive would involve a significant amount of excavation, building a retaining wall for the rest of the garden, building new front steps (which would have have a turn or two in them because they go up 4') and replacing the front fence.

It would cost thousands (got a quote from builder BIL and it was £5-£7k) and would give me, at most, an extra 9" of drive width because the front door is at the corner of the house that is immediately next to the drive, so to go any wider would mean my car would be blocking access to the front door.

That's over £500 for every extra inch of width, which I really don't think is worth it.

If you are using the car on and off several times a day then it's easier and quicker to simply park on the road, and then put it on the driveway at night when you're not going out anymore.

I don't think I'd choose road over driveway for car overnight but on days when I'd be in and out of the car 3-4 times I'd definitely rather just pull up outside house and then be able to pull away again without having to manouver on and off the drive each time.

When I lived in a family member's old house for about a year I never parked on the drive there - it was very, very narrow (an inch or two clearance on either side) uphill, and on a bend in the road.

Much easier to park outside on the road (kind of round the corner - it was a house on a corner with a big side garden). Couldn't personally give a toss if people got upset about it, I've every bit as much right to park on the road and I wasn't about to spend money widening my dead great-aunt's drive for a house that was getting sold eventually anyway. Soz.

Most of the people on that road parked on the street rather than their own very narrow, uphill drives (except the ones tarmaced their gardens so they had a massive parking at the front, which I personally find far more offensive than people parking on the road). So I can't be in the minority!

@stickygotstuck

I agree with littlepattilou. I've had several years of it and I'm fed up.

What I always wonder is, why don't councils incentivise the use and creation of drives? Take my street - every single house has massive, unused front gardens, the smallest of which could fit 2 cars with ease, some of them 4 or more. Why can't the council write to people to request they park in their bloody drives (I'd personally fine them for parking on the road!), and why not partly fund the conversion of unused front gardens into drives as an incentive to alleviate parking congestion?

As it is, everybody parks on the road, the road is relatively narrow, traffic is often held up and getting out of your drive when the neighbour opposite has left his car on the road (and his drive empty!) is a fucking nighmare. Everybody is a loser.

Because removing grass and covering everything in concrete and paving slabs is fucking terrible for the environment. My front garden's sole purpose is growing things, especially bee friendly plants. I happen to have a driveway (that I park on) but didn't in my previous property and if the council had written to me telling me I should turn it into a drive way I'd have sent them a two word reply.

@stickygotstuck

I agree with littlepattilou. I've had several years of it and I'm fed up.

What I always wonder is, why don't councils incentivise the use and creation of drives? Take my street - every single house has massive, unused front gardens, the smallest of which could fit 2 cars with ease, some of them 4 or more. Why can't the council write to people to request they park in their bloody drives (I'd personally fine them for parking on the road!), and why not partly fund the conversion of unused front gardens into drives as an incentive to alleviate parking congestion?

As it is, everybody parks on the road, the road is relatively narrow, traffic is often held up and getting out of your drive when the neighbour opposite has left his car on the road (and his drive empty!) is a fucking nighmare. Everybody is a loser.

When you create a drive, you need at least a car width of dropped kerb for access, so you lose one parking space on the road. There's only an overall gain in spaces if you have a drive that's more than one car long, and most houses don't have space for that.

It also increases risk of flooding if grass or flower beds are removed and replaced with concrete or asphalt. Rainwater just runs off into the road and the storm drains can't cope in heavy rain. There are houses where I live where heavy rain creates a huge puddle on the road and pavement following the creation of a driveway.

Someone on the opposite side of the road, where the drives slope down to the house, flooded his own hallway when his bodged DIY drive led to a huge puddle in front of the house. He had to have it all dug up and replaced by someone who knew what they were doing, and has been known as Barry Bodgit ever since.

And it's not very environmentally friendly. We have loads of birds and butterflies in our garden, because we plant things that attract pollinators, and my front beds seem to be full of gourmet worms judging by the amount of time blackbirds spend dining in it. There are two that fight over the right to my worms!

Why can't the council write to people to request they park in their bloody drives (I'd personally fine them for parking on the road!), and why not partly fund the conversion of unused front gardens into drives as an incentive to alleviate parking congestion?

Because the council has absolutely no right to make such a request, let alone issue fines. Nor does it have the money to do as you suggest. I’d rather have a front garden that a car right in front of my window. I imagine lots of people would.

I have a wide paved area on front of my house which can fit 4 cars if carefully arranged.

Sometimes I park on the road because my kids like to play or draw chalks on the drive. I also sometimes keep space on my drive in case of visitors. The road is a cul de sac and there's a wide area with space for 4 cars to park that's not next to a particular house, that I and all my neighbours often use.