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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
LampLighter414 · 18/02/2022 11:51

Anyway a number of factors here. Poor planning by housebuilders in modern estates - more focused on cramming as much homes onto a piece of land as possible to maximise profits than ensuring adequate width roads, parking/driveways, front gardens and houses being set back etc.

Also the general housing affordability issues we have in this country. More and more families with adult children staying at home for many years. Owning their own car is their only way to have a degree of independence. I viewed a house in a nice 90s cul de sac with big houses, driveways and wide roads. You could spot a few houses with 3-4 cars even there having to use roads or grass verges as additional parking - although still seems like heaven compared to my current terrace with nearby HMOs and bumper to bumper half pavement/half road parking and people failing to use their allocated parking to the rear of properties.

YouMuckyDuck · 18/02/2022 11:52

I think planning and highways should work together, its ridiculous. Lots of new builds have a garage that you are not allowed to put doors on, so they cannot be used for storage and count as a parking space
That doesn't solve the multi car family dilemma though

Nocutenamesleft · 18/02/2022 11:52

Round my okd house. We all had parking for 2 cars. Then people who had 4-6 cars in the household would fill up the roads

My mum lives in a disabled community. And you can’t even get a wheelchair down the road. As people cover the whole pavement with cars.

Needdoughnuts · 18/02/2022 12:00

No new builds should be allowed without 2 off-road parking spaces (with electric point), It wouldn't solve the current problem but would help for the future.

daisypond · 18/02/2022 12:04

@Needdoughnuts

No new builds should be allowed without 2 off-road parking spaces (with electric point), It wouldn't solve the current problem but would help for the future.
The opposite. New builds should absolutely have no off-road parking spaces.
SpaghettiArmsMurderer · 18/02/2022 12:06

@Needdoughnuts

No new builds should be allowed without 2 off-road parking spaces (with electric point), It wouldn't solve the current problem but would help for the future.
No new builds should be built without access to public transport! They have built loads here, we have excellent buses in our town but they didn’t build the new estates into the routes. I refuse to buy a house that’s not in reach of a bus route.
HollaHolla · 18/02/2022 12:06

I live in a flat complex, where every flat has one car parking space. There are about 12 visitor spaces. As you can imagine, many people park their 2nd cars in those visitor spaces constantly, so there's almost never any opportunity for visitors to actually park. They are all 1 or 2 bedroom flats, yet some flats seem to have 3 cars....

It gives me rage when I come home to find someone else parked in my space... but luckily mine is kind of in a corner, so I park them in, and leave a note on their car. Sometimes I come and answer the door immediately - sometimes I don't. They don't do it again. Grin

But, anyway.... yes, for me, it was important that I bought somewhere with parking, as I'm practically in the town centre. If I moved a street away, though, to the beautiful Victorian terraces, it's on-street parking, and a bit of a 'mare, despite it being residents permits.

I think back to when my siblings and I lived at home in our mid-20s, and at one point (shamefully), we had 4 cars for 5 of us. My parents both had a car (both worked shifts, which made sharing or public transport difficult), my sister and I shared a car, which worked ok, and my brother had a car, because he likes cars! Oh, and occasionally my dad had a work vehicle, if he was going to a specific site which needed it (worked on windfarms). Our neighbours must have hated us, as only 2 cars fitted on the drive.

SelkieQualia · 18/02/2022 12:19

The theory is that if full self drive ever becomes reliable at level 5 (and there are big leaps being made all the time) turn this will mostly do away with private car ownership. Most of the cost of a taxi is the wage of the human driver. If the car drives itself, "taxi" rides become very cheap. So cheap that it becomes not worth owning a car.

Notjustanymum · 18/02/2022 12:19

Oh the irony of the OP saying “ Mine isnt on the road it's on my drive!”, thus neatly and (just as selfishly as those who don’t have a drive so park on the road) removing at least one space available for parking, from the road!

The problem is indeed, too many cars - but until an alternative infrastructure exists to get everyone from their different A’s to B’s, I can’t see the situation improving.

Curlygirl06 · 18/02/2022 12:26

@Sideswiped

On my estate, some houses have drives, others don't but have allocated parking in parking areas dotted throughout the estate. People choose not to use them, parking on corners, or diagonally opposite others so that you can barely get your car through. Meanwhile, the said parking areas are barely used. I'd love for the police to come round giving tickets, but they haven't as yet. I hope that there is not a serious event that needs a fire engine / ambulance etc to come through. YANBU.
My dh was a fireman and he used to drive the fire engine. They were called out to a fire, cars parked down both sides of the road. There was a report of people in the building so they rang the police, drove down the middle of the road taking off all the wing mirrors of the parked cars and pushing some of them off the road with the fire engine. The police then attended and ticketed all of the cars!
schnubbins · 18/02/2022 12:28

Where I live its camper vans /caravans and trailers on every street .Yesterday I saw a old boat parked at the side of a street in a residential area.I do think there should be some restrictions on those type of vehicles and as the poster said above purchase against proof of somewhere to store /park during winter.

Kite22 · 18/02/2022 12:48

Totally agree @FloBot7 . I've discounted what are lovely family homes on new build estates simply because they have narrow roads and nowhere for visitors to park, let alone adult dc that live with you. I can't imagine what would happen if a fire engine needed to get through in a hurry.

It's ludicrous isn't it @DetailMouse ? Really off putting when you are buying. Did the same when they altered my local High Street a few years ago. Took away a fairly small but really useful car park to make it into a "pedestrianised area" but then people either park on the side roads of a nearby estate - hence all the complaints you see daily on MN about people parking 'in my road' , and other people don't shop there anymore as they can no longer park there. Bonkers.

If you need multiple cars buy a house with more spaces?

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've read in a long time. Grin
We bought our house (built in the 19th century so no front drive) when we had one car. Since then our lives have changed a lot, so first we got a 2nd car, then, my dc grew up and bought their own cars.
They both bought cars for under £1K. To move to one of the houses nearby with parking for 4 cars would cost about £300K extra in house prices, PLUS moving costs. What a completely bonkers idea.

Totally agree with @DoNotTouchTheWater re the bonkers policies. Our City Council is like this. Thinks if it takes away parking, or blocks roads people won't use cars but puts nothing into providing alternatives for people who have to get from a to b. Hmm

TheOriginalEmu · 18/02/2022 13:19

@Iamthewombat

If there had been a bus that picked me up from my house and dropped me off outside my work, I'd have got rid of the car without a doubt.

When I hear people saying that they HAVE to park their car on the pavement, or blocking a junction, because they HAVE to travel in a car that they can’t park safely or considerately because public transport is, according to them, so terrible, I think this is what they mean. Why can’t a bus be constantly waiting on standby to pick them up from home and take them to the door of their destination? It’s simply not fair.

Where I live there is 4 buses a day through my village. If I want to go to the nearest town where my dentist is, or my doctor, there are buses at 7, 1, 5 and 9. So say my appt is at 10. I have to leave at 6.50, and I’ll be home about 2pm. For 5 min appt, it takes up most of my day.
Iamthewombat · 18/02/2022 13:21

Yes, but does that justify blocking junctions, or pavements, or other dangerous and selfish parking practices?

Brefugee · 18/02/2022 13:22

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.

that is ridiculous. In Germany all new build properties have to have off road parking.

megletthesecond · 18/02/2022 13:25

Yanbu. In my estate (1960's) there is one space per household.
It's a nightmare now we have two or three car families.

Upamountain43 · 18/02/2022 13:49

In my area people park on the pavement on both sides - its the only way to enable vehicles to drive down the road.

The solution is taxpayers paying for a heavily subsidised mass public transport system or taxpayers being willing to pay for half the population to stop working.

There really is no options for the millions of us who live in Victorian Terraced Houses or the like.

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 18/02/2022 13:49

This reply has been deleted

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TheOriginalEmu · 18/02/2022 13:58

@Iamthewombat

Yes, but does that justify blocking junctions, or pavements, or other dangerous and selfish parking practices?
No of course it doesn’t, I’m just saying that for some people a car is vital.
JammyRedRooo · 18/02/2022 14:04

@Notjustanymum

Oh the irony of the OP saying “ Mine isnt on the road it's on my drive!”, thus neatly and (just as selfishly as those who don’t have a drive so park on the road) removing at least one space available for parking, from the road!

The problem is indeed, too many cars - but until an alternative infrastructure exists to get everyone from their different A’s to B’s, I can’t see the situation improving.

I kind of see what you are saying, although I think my previous point about there needing to be dropped curb areas where cars cant park for pedestrian/accessibility reasons still stands. If nobody had drives and cars were parked all the way along the road for miles how are prams and wheelchair users supposed to cross?
OP posts:
Iamthewombat · 18/02/2022 14:07

I didn’t dispute that. Of course for some people a car is vital. Can nobody read any more?

I explicitly stated that people use the ‘bad public transport’ excuse for selfish and dangerous parking, and I don’t think it stands up. I used an example of a PP who said that she would be prepared to use a bus if it picked her up from outside her house and dropped her at the door of work, at a time of her choice, of course. Which is just silly.

I didn’t say, “everyone should use public transport because nobody really needs a car”.

Thanks for telling us about your local bus service, though.

JammyRedRooo · 18/02/2022 14:09

Public transport needs to be better of course. And there are people that genuinely need the number of cars that they have that live in places with insufficient parking. But I also think there are a LOT of people who could make it work with less cars but just choose not to.

For example near me is a kids football field. The number of parents who clog up all the cul de sacs in the area with their cars, block driveways, park on private property when I'm pretty confident most of the kids who play live in our (walkable) town is just silly.

OP posts:
HomeHomeInTheRange · 18/02/2022 14:13

OP Mine isnt on the road it's on my drive

Every drive with a dropped kerb that has to be kept clear effectively takes up a parking space.

goawaystormy · 18/02/2022 14:21

What do you propose?

The Japanese system seems to work.

To register a car, or when changing address, you need to prove to the local police that you have a parking space for it.

So essentially, poor people shouldn't be allowed to have a car? If you aren't rich enough to have a house with a drive you shouldn't be allowed to have a car? And therefore are limited in both job and travel opportunities, thus perpetuating the cycle of inequality. If you're too poor for a house with a drive you have to spend more money than you'd spend on a car on extortionate trains, buses etc.

emmathedilemma · 18/02/2022 14:23

At least they're parked on the road and not the pavement!!

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