Woman completely bollocked me for parking on double yellows..

[flowerpowder]

I know, I am in the wrong because I parked wrong. For 2 minutes only, but nonetheless- wrong.

I was getting back into my car and this lady starts charging at me- I had both my Babies in the car. She starts screaming at me ' you can't park here, you can't park here. ' I put my hands up and say ' I know I'm sorry I'm sorry. ' She continues charging at my car. At this point I got scared and again said 'I am sorry and it won't happen again. '

I jumped into my car and locked the doors and she starts banging on my window, at which point - I again say ' look I understand and I won't park here again'.

Only then did she finally let off and I drove away.

Isn't that a bit of an extreme reaction ? I would never do that. Fair enough if I had got angry back, but I immediately apologised and backed down and she just kept going. She really scared me.

Your objection seems to have changed from her unacceptable aggression towards you to faux concern for her well-being in case one day she kicks off at the wrong person.

This is such a weird thread.

You didn't deserve shouting at.

The woman wasn't 'deranged' or a 'psychopath' and she does not 'deserve a smack', she was probably worried or anxious.

You were in the wrong.

All of those things can be true.

We're all about the mental health awareness and the sharing and the not being afraid to tell someone we're struggling and the time to talk stuff, until it would be really handy to be able to call someone a psycho. But hey, those weirdos aren't the ones we mean when we talk about mental health awareness, are they? It's for when normal people are struggling, right? And it's not like it's a real ableist slur, like the one for people with cerebral palsy that got an entire thread deleted a couple of weeks ago.

It’s not true to say we can use whatever language we choose. Society has drawn some lines in the sand on free speech. I’m not saying for a second that they have been crossed here, but your statement is simply untrue. In any event, all Savoir said was ‘can you please refrain…’. Couldn’t have been more polite. Hardly warrants you, apparent champion of free speech, effectively telling them to shut up.

But she is ok to tell others to shut up? Oh, ok. That works.

Op @flowerpowder this “deserved a smack from someone” quote is really depressing and slightly disturbing.

it’s depressing because so many road problems seem to result in the person who committed the wrong, giving a volley of verbal abuse to the person complaining, who then returns back a load of sweary abuse..

Is the next logical step that someone will “serve her right” and assault her? Is that the direction we are going in?

this country (and many others) has a huge problem with folk being told about their behaviour.

Recently I drove the wrong way around a car park where the arrows weren’t clear. Someone coming the other way a distance away pointed this out , admittedly a little animated.

know what I did?

I stopped. I put the car in reverse. I moved back and held a hand up.

because I was wrong!!

it doesn’t matter what the other person did or their hand gestures. I’ll never see them again. I couldn’t care. i was wrong and I corrected my driving mistake.

OP, you were wrong. You were wrong to stop on double yellow lines and could have found somewhere else to stop. It wasn’t an emergency. But the fact the other person was aggressive, doesn’t mean you can jump on here in the aim of getting a ton of sympathy, and ignore the fact you were wrong, and should have acknowledged that somewhere in this.

But you've openly admitted it's only her aggressive behaviour that is stopping you do it again. Because she scared you.

@ClumpingBambooIsALie

disgraceful comparison. I should have expected as much considering the mentality though.

It’s perfectly legal to stop on double yellows. You cannot PARK or wait on double yellows (providing there are no ‘No stopping’ signs. Red lines indicate no stopping for any reason.
If you were attending to your children for a brief period of time, it is highly unlikely a traffic warden or police officer would have ticketed you and in any case you’d have grounds to appeal as loading/unloading and “dropping-off” are permitted. All the people going red in the face about law-breakers should actually make themselves aware of the law.

Showing your true colours now. Not quite the poor, timid little mum you originally tried to portray yourself as for sympathy, are you?

@flowerpowder That woman’s behaviour was appalling and totally out of order. Yes, you shouldn’t have parked there but what an awful experience for you, especially with your babies! Hoping you are ok 💐

Apparently I deserved it entirely !! She could have just said - ' don't park here, it's dangerous ' or whatever. She should have backed off as soon as she could see I was profusely apologising, but she continued. Not OK. And not OK that people say I actually deserved that. But hey ho. One day she'll act like that with the wrong person and she'll pay the price for it.

At least you were in the wrong. I had a madwoman scream at me for parking, perfectly legally, outside her house. She was one of those hard of thinking types who believed she owned the road 🤯

@flowerpowder i agree, there was absolutely no need for her to go off on a tirade like that on you! Honestly, I think you handled it with grace - you are so right that one day someone will turn around and give her what for for acting like that. Please pay no notice to some of the ruder comments above - you did not deserve that attitude and behaviour from her xx

Crazy woman. I'd have told her to go and call the police if she's that bothered. Pissing myself at all the law abiding perfect citizens on here who have obviously never done anything wrong in their life.

I'm well aware of the highway code thanks and that there are exceptions, for double yellows, which have already been pointed out.

Yeah, no need for that reaction. There's no need for her to approach you at all if you hadn't left your car.

I dunno OP, double yellow can be used for loading/unloading, so not that critical to comply with. I'd say getting something out of your boot for a couple of minutes falls in to that category. I wouldn't worry too much about this woman, she's obviously very passionate about it and overreacted. That's her issue not yours

I'm in the south ( not London) and we also have double red lines, these are absolute no parking or waiting or loading etc

For her to have behaved so agressively to what was a relatively minor transgression, I suspect she was already wound up about something. There are lots of very stressed and unhappy people around and little things can be the straw that broke the camel's back. Not nice for you at all though @flowerpowder

Personally I think it's the whole "stabbing a person because your religious beliefs were insulted" that's disgraceful. It comes from the same impulse — my sacred thing is being spoken about badly!

We all have things that, when people say them, we might want to ask them to reconsider using the words, and providing they're legal, need to accept that sometimes people will continue to use them despite our preferences. For me, that might be sexist, ableist, or racist slurs. For others that might be saying "Jesus fucking Christ".

But it's the idea that respect is somehow due — in a way that's qualitatively different from the ordinary respect you might show to other human beings by not using e.g. racist language — that's striking.

A man was viciously attacked just days ago because several decades ago he was thought not to have shown enough respect to an important religious character. I find it insensitive to be posting right now about how people aren't respecting your important religious characters enough. If you find that disgraceful and would like to further speculate about my mentality, that is of course up to you.

Agree 100%.

Also, my instinct to resist being asked not to offend religious sensibilities is a lot stronger than my instinct to resist being asked not to offend other sensibilities, purely because until the very recent past in this country, and to this day elsewhere in the world, blasphemy has been punished to various levels up to and including torture and death. None of my ancestors ever lived under a feminist dictatorship or an anti-racist dictatorship, but plenty of them lived under oppressive religious regimes. I don't want to ever go back to a time when you couldn't speak your mind about religion, so when someone asks, even nicely, to stop offending their religious beliefs, and follows it up by talking about the respect they believe their religious characters are due, I think about how much of that expectation of respect is a hangover from a time when they could force me.

I never get why the Lord is on a bike in that phrase

His cross was in for a service?

Way OTT reaction. Not sure why she didn't just leave it after you admitted you were wrong and were clearly not going to hang around. Maybe having a bad day or some issues of her own. I don't think its normal to get that aggressive over a fairly minor transgression.

I recently told a woman that she shouldn't be parked on a single yellow line (with a sign displaying times you are not permitted to stop) outside my son's primary school and asked her to move. The reason they have those lines outside the school is because it's bloody dangerous and risks kids being run over because they can't be seen. She had parked half on the road and half on the pavement. The section of street she parked on has terraced housing with no driveway or paths and a narrow pavement. It was also bin day and she'd parked directly next to the bins, completely blocking the pavement. It meant that everyone else had to step into the busy road to get past her car. I told her that she shouldn't be parked there and she needed to move and she started shoving her finger in my face telling me that I'm not a traffic warden, I can't tell her what to do, she knows the rules of the road, how dare I tell her what to do... on and on and then started personally insulting me. I think I would have just said sorry in a sheepish manner and driven off. I was gobsmacked that she thought she had the right to get angry when being pulled up on dangerous behaviour and really thought that her convenience was more important than everyone else's safety.

She's lucky she didn't encounter a woman like that or it sounds as though they would have come to blows!