Moved into the house of our dreams this summer - but didn't realise parking would be such an issue.
We have a "driveway" that is wide enough to accommodate 3 cars. It is L shaped so 2 cars would be parked in a line and 1 car off to the side IYSWIM.
We don't have 3 cars though, we have 2. And we thought it would be perfect. But after we moved in, we realised that space 3 (the one off to the side) is impossible to get into, due to the narrow entry way into the drive.
Because spaces 1 & 2 are back to back, we only really get use out of 1 space.
The people that lived here before us were very elderly and housebound.
So the solution is to whip out the gate post and make it all wider at the front. Ideally we would also increase the dropped curb.
Parking on the road should be no issue. It's a tiny village with no shops, no school and no attractions. Just a line of houses and every single house has a drive - apart from the house opposite. The house opposite have 3 enormous cars and nowhere to put them. The road is narrow.
Their preference is to park them right outside our house - which would be no problem, except they hem us in on all sides. They park so that each end of their cars are overhanging our dropped curb by just a few mm. The third car, they park directly opposite our drive. It's not technically an illegal parking formation but it does mean that it's a 6-point-turn getting onto or off our own driveway. Every day. It's driving me batty!!!
I have tried having a friendly word and they just said "we've lived here for 22 years" and nothing else. No apology, explanation or owt. Just that. And then they walked away.
I realise this is a very small thing to be complaining about. But I am at my wits end after missing my own midwife appointment last week because they had totally blocked me in!
The other thing is (although the speed limit is 30), people average around 50mph on our road and I can't see round the tunnel of car they have created. It's like the riskiest creep-n-peep ever. And it's an almost daily occurrence that some vehicle is bombing it along and has to do an emergency stop because I'm sat in the middle of the road, trapped between 3 cars, doing my dodgy 6-point-turn 😅
If I call the council and show them how dangerous it all is, how likely is it that they will let me increase my dropped curb by another foot or so? Or apply some double yellows? Or am I in fantasy land? And would this be the biggest Dick Move ever to my neighbours - who would then have to shuffle along the street to the next spots?
We do try to nab at least 1 of the spots with 1 of our cars, if we can - and leave a good foot of space so that the driveway isn't all hemmed in. But we work full time and the cars are in constant use. Whereas our neighbours seem happy to leave theirs there for days on end. We can't both be parking on the street all the time as we have young kids to load in (and I'm preggers). Plus my car is electric so I need to be able to charge it.
Our house is quite wide so there are a total of road 3 spaces along our frontage. They could shuffle down a bit and not use the one that hems in our drive!
Oh, for the record, I drive a Golf so it's neither a big nor small car. DH drives something similar but not electric. I'm not trying to manoeuvre some angry tank!
So, the Q is:
AIBU to contact the council and try to get the curb lowered / permanently change the parking situation?
YANBU: This sounds fine and safe and your neighbours will get over it.
YABU: They've done this for 20 years and now you think you should shake it all up? It's just parking. Get a life. Etc.
Opinions from both sides welcome! I can submit diagrams if this helps... I have the day off.