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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that there are too many parked cars on the roads these days?

214 replies

JammyRedRooo · 17/02/2022 19:58

Its absolutely ridiculous in my area. Whole swathes of road are basically one lane only due to the amount of parked cars. It makes visibility when driving really difficult.

Half of the houses have empty drives as well!

You can't turn into my cul de sac on the correct side of the road because of the row of parked cars all the way up to the junction, it's just so dangerous.

I know you pay a premium for a house with parking, or households often have more cars than spaces but I find it so infuriating and unsafe.

Anyone else?

OP posts:
NannyOggsWhiskyStash · 17/02/2022 20:39

It has always puzzled me why people park on the road rather than their driveway. It's just another example of people's selfish behaviour

YouMuckyDuck · 17/02/2022 20:41

@twominutesmore

We have one car now, on the drive. I think it's different if your needs evolve over time but you can't move. I just don't understand why you'd buy a house that doesn't meet your needs immediately.
Er money?
DockOTheBay · 17/02/2022 20:41

What do you want people to do?
Not drive? Park their car miles away from their house? Buy a different house... but refuse to sell their drive-less house to someone who drives?

HunterHearstHelmsley · 17/02/2022 20:42

Also, I have a drive for three cars. We are a three car household. However, cars park opposite our drive. There isn't enough space to get cars two and three off the drive with a car there due to the angle. We end up parking at least one on the road because if someone parks opposite we are trapped.

My next door neighbours drive can't be accessed due to a lamp post and our gates. Really don't understand why someone put a drive there. Its basically an ornament.

DockOTheBay · 17/02/2022 20:42

I just don't understand why you'd buy a house that doesn't meet your needs immediately
Because you can't afford to.... quite obviously. Most people have to compromise in some way to buy a house.

FloodTheBathroom · 17/02/2022 20:44

It's the multiple cars per household that gets me, and the looking after cars for friends. Why oh why are there 3 cars parked outside my house that haven't moved for weeks?! Who do they belong to? It's a mystery. Makes it hard to get off my drive. The there's the people paying to tax and insure a huge van conversion that's parked on the road 50 weeks of the year apart from their annual two week tour of Cornwall. No visibility and takes up a space for visitors. Drives me mad.

Iheartmysmart · 17/02/2022 20:46

I’ve just been out for a walk with the dog around the new build estate down the road from me. Most of the houses have a garage and single parking space or two tandem parking spaces. The council have recently put double yellow lines all along the main road so people are now parking their entire cars on the pavement outside their house! We had to keep walking in the road as we couldn’t get past.

Lockheart · 17/02/2022 20:46

@DockOTheBay

What do you want people to do? Not drive? Park their car miles away from their house? Buy a different house... but refuse to sell their drive-less house to someone who drives?
Reduce their car usage, vote for parties who plan to upgrade public transport, campaign for better infrastructure, lobby for communal school transport, use car hire schemes rather than owning, use a bike...

It's not an insurmountable inconvenience to reduce private car ownership.

Original poster
JammyRedRooo · 17/02/2022 20:48

I wonder about the emergency services thing too. Also when the bin men come it means nobody can get in or out of the road until they are finished, which is super unhelpful when you have to be at work.

Agree that public transport needs to be better. More accessible and cheaper.

Don't know what the solution is as I understand a lot of people dont have much of a choice. Just a moan really!

OP posts:
shouldistop · 17/02/2022 20:49

This reminds me of my step dad who rants when he's driving "I mean, it's just so busy, where are they all going?!" Oblivious to the irony.

SleeplessWB · 17/02/2022 20:50

@twominutesmore

We have one car now, on the drive. I think it's different if your needs evolve over time but you can't move. I just don't understand why you'd buy a house that doesn't meet your needs immediately.
Almost none of the houses in our area have drives, they are all Victorian... If you want to live here, you have to park on the road. To me the location was more important than having a drive and I wouldn't move in order to get a drive...
Wingedharpy · 17/02/2022 20:52

I also think that part of the issue is new houses, sometimes built without a garage - or, with a garage that's too small to fit anything but a Dinky car in.

Then there are the plonkers, like many of my neighbours, who have adequate sized garages, but don't use them everyday - only some days (so it can't be because they're full of other stuff).

And Victor Meldrew, from next door, who moves his car from his garage, religiously, every day, to park it in front of his house so that no-one else can park there.Hmm

Porfre · 17/02/2022 20:56

And what would you do if you didnt have a drive?

What if you cant afford a house with a drive? What do you want people to do?

ivykaty44 · 17/02/2022 21:00

I don’t get how it’s still free mostly (or ridiculous cheap) to store a car on the road, if I put a bench or shed the same size as a car, on the side of the road it would be removed.

Many roads have three lanes for cars, two lanes just sit there all day and one for moving

80% of the time a car sits doing nothing at all

To think that there are too many parked cars on the roads these days?
Walkingthedog46 · 17/02/2022 21:02

A few well-placed yellow lines in our area would make driving less frustrating. A road near me is rendered single file because of cars parked both sides of the road. There is a T junction half way down the road, Some people park right up to this junction - sometimes even overlapping the junction, meaning that sometimes a driver cannot see into that road from the junction to check if anything is coming up until having pulled forward. If you are unlucky enough to then meet a vehicle coming towards you, you have to then shuffle back and forth to allow them to pass.

LakieLady · 17/02/2022 21:08

@SilverGlitterBaubles

Yanbu especially in the instances where people actually have driveways but still park on the road, I just don't understand it. On the other hand there are so many properties being built now without parking so people have to park somewhere and will end up in nearby roads.
I park on the road and leave my drive empty.

The drive slopes downhill, I have arthritis in my knees and it's bloody excruciating getting in and out when it's parked on a slope.

Kite22 · 17/02/2022 21:15

I can understand why there isn't enough parking for all the millions of homes built before people owning cars was the norm, or even when households only had one car, but what makes no sense to me is all the new house and new estates that planners allow to be built without enough parking.

Lockheart · 17/02/2022 21:15

twitter.com/stuarthelmer/status/1494249345264275457

This is a cracker though: www.echo-news.co.uk/news/19925934.canvey-drivers-dump-cars-hours-gridlock/

After hours of long delays hitting Canvey traffic... On Monday some motorists walked for more than 15 minutes to get home.

This is what happens when our infrastructure is designed so we can avoid a 15 minute walk.

Mynameisnew · 17/02/2022 21:16

It would help round here if garages were wide enough to put a car into and then exit the car.

balalake · 17/02/2022 21:17

I think it would be a lot less of an issue if SUVs and other large cars were not in the numbers that they were.

Lockheart · 17/02/2022 21:19

@balalake

I think it would be a lot less of an issue if SUVs and other large cars were not in the numbers that they were.
Yes the size of the average car has increased. In part for safety, in part for status symbol.
Original poster
JammyRedRooo · 17/02/2022 21:27

@shouldistop

This reminds me of my step dad who rants when he's driving "I mean, it's just so busy, where are they all going?!" Oblivious to the irony.
It's not though cause I'm not doing it as well!
OP posts:
ivykaty44 · 17/02/2022 21:27

On Monday some motorists walked for more than 15 minutes to get home.

But no one on mn ever drives less than 6 miles & they all live rurally, they’ll be along soon to explain

RamonaFlowers1 · 17/02/2022 21:27

There's not much parking on my street and some drivers end up parking in nearby streets. There's one car that's been parked in a space for a while and hasn't moved. I checked today, its MOT expired in November and it has a SORN. But it's parked in the street and taking up a space. Annoying. So I reported it.

bigbluebus · 17/02/2022 21:32

They built some new houses at the bottom of my road a year or two ago. The driveways between the houses run alongside each other. The occupants who moved into the bungalow had 2 cars which they parked one behind the other on their drive every day - until the people moved in to the house next door with 2 vehicles which they could also park on their drive one behind the other. Except if all 4 vehicles do that, none of them have room to open their car doors! So now 1 car from each household parks on the pavement outside their houses - the pavement which was built as part of the planning consent to improve pedestrian safety on the existing main road that these houses driveways front on to! So we still have to walk on the road in a place where the 60mph limit only changes to 30mph about 10m away so many vehicles haven't actually slowed down.

It's time that planners made sure that parking spaces on new builds are fit for purpose and big enough for the number if cars they are likely to need to park - and stop counting a garage as a parking space as hardly any one uses it to put a car in.

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