Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

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

145 replies

NicFairy · 04/05/2021 13:25

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?

OP posts:

WhipperSnapperSteve · 04/05/2021 16:40

Parking across a dropped curb is an obstruction and a PCN can be issued by the police/council enforcement officers, it's a nightmare for buggies and especially wheelchairs and mobility scooters.

ouchmyfeet · 04/05/2021 16:41

@Jijithecat

I sometimes park my car in the road because I'm fed up with having people parking across my drive way and not being able to leave the house when I want to because of it.

This.

MummytoCSJH · 04/05/2021 16:48

@WhipperSnapperSteve

Parking across a dropped curb is an obstruction and a PCN can be issued by the police/council enforcement officers, it's a nightmare for buggies and especially wheelchairs and mobility scooters.

This! Parking across driveways might be enforceable in some ways but it's no good them enforcers taking hours to come out or try to contact the owner to move when your disabled child has a medical emergency (no ambulance needed, can take them to hospital myself but still need to get my car out!) for example.

motherloaded · 04/05/2021 16:54

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.

good grief, some people take parking issues VERY personally

I'd argue that it's you who seem not to mind your own business and think the world revolves around you!

As long as it's legal and not obstructive, people park where they want. Even if they then go shopping or on holiday. You need to move to a private road where you can enforce your own rules!

ElphabaTWitch · 04/05/2021 17:00

Folk round here do it cos they are selfish fuckers. They block people in with both their cars and leave the driveway empty. Selfish arrogant txxxs. I also often wonder if/when their cars end up vandalised, the product of a hit and run, do they tell insurers they park on the road?? Cos their premium will be lowered if they claim to park on the drive at home??!...

CuntyMcBollocks · 04/05/2021 17:03

I had a driveway at my old house but would park my car across it on the road. I lived near a school and got so sick of inconsiderate arseholes constantly parking across my drive (dropped kerb too) and blocking me in, making me late for work.

worriedatthemoment · 04/05/2021 17:11

Where i live we have one allocated parking and so does ny neighbour all the others have 2 allocated spaces and many of them park in one of the other spaces and leave allocated one empty ( not saved for guests) leaving us struggling to park
Another one only has one car and 2 allocated spaces so parks in the middle of them , doesn't even let a neighbour use one.
If we go away with the car when we only had one car , I would always say to my neighbours to use the space for the week as pointless sitting empty and then them struggling .

Hotelhelp · 04/05/2021 17:12

I’m lazy and can’t be bothered reversing my car into the drive

OwlBeThere · 04/05/2021 17:14

@SnackSizeRaisin
Do all the people who have drives but park on the road inform their insurers where they park?

My insurer asks where I park overnight. Which is on my drive if I can get on it. In the day it’s often across my drive because otherwise I get stuck in my house and when you have a disabled child, a disability yourself and are in and out all day then it gets tedious.

CuntyMcBollocks · 04/05/2021 17:17

There's often genuine reasons as to why people don't/can't park on their drives. It doesn't mean that they're lazy or stupid and don't know how to drive properly. The ignorance on here sometimes is awful.

Crankley · 04/05/2021 17:18

Because they want to.

tigerbread20 · 04/05/2021 17:18

Have frequently been blocked in my own drive. DP parks on the drive as he is more ballsy about telling people off.
I can't be arsed and it's just easier to park on the road now (and also stops people blocking DH in if I do it strategically)

WhipperSnapperSteve · 04/05/2021 17:21

The arrogance of people on this thread thinking it's fine to cause an obstruction "just because" is staggering, I'm genuinely perplexed.

AlwaysLatte · 04/05/2021 17:21

Whenever I visit our rental I always park on the road as it's a really tight fit between the brick pillars beside the drive. Our tenant squeezes a Range Rover in there though so it is possible!

motherloaded · 04/05/2021 17:36

Causing an obstruction is never acceptable, no one said it was.
If there were less obstructions, more people would park on their own drive for a start.

I bought a house with a drive specifically to give me the choice to park on it, park on the road, have space on my drive for visitors or a skip or whatever. I wouldn't block a neighbour, or even make their access difficult, but anyone can park on the road, including my cars!

GabriellaMontez · 04/05/2021 17:40

Why don't you park in 'their' space. See if they aren't their drive.

Icancelledthecheque · 04/05/2021 17:41

We had to drive around the back to our driveway, which allegedly fit two cars... but in reality it only fit one as they built great big bloody walls at either side so you couldn’t turn without driving onto the neighbours front garden! Happily we got a massive discount on the (new build) house because they realised they’d hugely fucked up so it was worth it really.

That’s why I always parked at the front of our house.

It did annoy me when neighbours moved into their (one car) drive house... with FIVE cars. And as the road was so narrow, they couldn’t park in front of their own house so constantly dumped it in front of other neighbours. Why buy a house that you know you can’t park in front of if you have that many cars?!

And yes I know it’s legal to park wherever, bla bla. Doesn’t make it less inconsiderate though.

FishyFriday · 04/05/2021 17:42

I used to live in a street where everyone had a drive. However, the neighbours across the road would often park outside their house which meant you needed to do a 75 point shuffle to get out of our Barrie driveway entrance. It was a rented house do widening it wasn't an option.

So we parked on the road.

Billandben444 · 04/05/2021 17:49

Just as an aside - apparently your keyless-entry car is safer (insurance wise) parked in a car park or down the road than on your drive. Thieving scumbags don't know where the car lives so are unable to use transmitters to get into it.

as you were...

Londonmummy66 · 04/05/2021 17:50

Because the money I make from renting my drive out via Justpark is four times the cost of the annual permit to park my car on the street.

Charm23 · 04/05/2021 17:57

Not my direct neighbours, thankfully, but there is a house round the corner from us that I walk past several times a day and they always park in front of their house rather than their driveway. It annoys us much more than it should! They could fit both cars on it if they didn't have stuff piled on their driveway. The most annoying part of this is that they park right over a dropped kerb with tactile paving which isn't legal and it also takes up half the pathway which makes it almost impossible to get by with a pram and our dog, especially when they have a big bush in their front garden that I don't want to squeeze past in case it flicks in my DDs face. I always end up walking in the road to get past which I'd rather not do.
I've never seen the people who live there but I day dream about posting a letter or knocking on their door and telling them to park elsewhere 😂 Community officer is aware but no change! This definitely annoys me more than it should 😆

If you're reading this and think it's you, please move your car!! 😋

SnipSnapGiraffe · 04/05/2021 17:58

I park on the road during the week as the sun hits the car in the morning and defrosts it for me, and there’s far less condensation/mist than when I park it on our shady drive. Also, it gets covered in bird crap and leaves whilst on the drive but less so on the road. It’s a private road though, so no competing for parking spaces.

LilithTheKitty · 04/05/2021 18:02

It's because they're shit at reversing and can't be bothered to learn so they're scared of getting on/off the drive.

wombatspoopcubes · 04/05/2021 18:03

[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]
Our driveway is the exact width of the space between two houses. There isn't an option for widening.

I only park in front of my driveway on thursdays because that's when the neighbours daughter comes to visit and she always blocks me in.

Wanderlust20 · 04/05/2021 18:05

Because it's easier to manoeuvre in and out. I've "learned" the best way to reverse into our drive way (without hitting anyone else!) but I'm a nervous driver and hate parking so maybe there's people like me that park on the street for ease?

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6