AIBU to block in school mums parking on my driveway?

[Applepiesmum]

i live down the road from a school and during the school rush parents park everywhere it normally worse in the afternoon at 3pm

I work from home and usually park in the visitor pay outside my house so my partner can park on the driveway he gets home 3.30-4pm

however recently people have been parking on my driveway last week I caught someone pulling in knocked on their window and they argued with me saying they need to pick up their child eventually they did move but moved to where they were just half way blocking my drive way and halfway blocking my neighbor so no one could access it!

I didn’t bother confront them again but in future I’m just thinking to block them in… is that too petty

I have reported it to the school but all they’ve said is they’ve already asked parents not to block residents in so I’m not sure what else to do.

(if I did block anyone in it would only be for 30 minutes to cause a bit of stress and a lesson learned)

If you contact police with the reg and say they constantly block your drive they will send a letter to the owner telling them not to block your drive , hopefully that should put a stop to it.

Our local school suggests parents park in the public car park that is 3 minutes walk from school. 2 is you walk briskly/run.

Most parents still prefer to park in a way that inconveniences local residents.

I'm afraid I don't believe that all those people have a genuine reason that they can't park 2 minutes away. They just think their needs trump everyone else's.

There are no rules of the road that apply because its not a road, its private land.
Its only illegal if you keep their car permanently and they can prove you were trying to permanently deprive them of it. Even then it's doubtful as an offence.
Why not put a sign up, buy a wheel clamp and fine them?

That is strange. Nobody I know has 30 minutes to spare for school gate chatting.

So you think the poor mum, who lives 2 miles from the school, should just leave 1/2 an hour earlier (in the pouring rain), with her 5 year old and younger children, to walk there in time? Seriously….

why don’t you park across the drive then when he’s home move it onto the drive then he parks across the drive

No, of course not, that would be unreasonable. Nearly as unreasonable as thinking that because you have children, you’re entitled to ignore the rules of the road and inconvenience everyone else at school run time. There is a very popular school round the corner from us and every single school run time is misery for all the residents because of these entitled twats.

The last figures I saw were that a third of all cars on the morning school run go straight back home. I'd guess many are under a mile. Many are SUVs driven by people who would fail a driving test in one.

Even the two thirds have no justification for parking on private property without permission.

Hope the green bin OP does the trick.

Then he will just have to park further away? Unless it is OPs space that she owns or it comes with her house?

On another note, I would put birdseed on any car on my drive

I think it's a bit selfish to hog a parking space all day just to save your DH a space in the evening. To me that kind of makes you lose the moral high ground.

That said, parking on someone's drive is absolutelly CF'ery. I think though that you should give them a warning/ tell them not to do it before blocking anyone in.

@Jumbojade but why does this mom live 2 miles from the school? Unless she's rural there will be schools a lot closer to where she lives. Unless this child has SEN then this parents has opted to take their child to a school 2 miles from where they live. I don't get why everyone else should be inconvenienced because she has chosen to send her child to a (I presume) 'better' school than the ones closer.

Install a fold up/ down bollard to keep them off your drive when it's empty.

It’s good to know they’re not all the same
parents at my boys old school had time for breakfast together at a nice little deli aswel.

Some could still be there or outside the school gates chatting away at lunch time.

My cousins kids live in Watford.
Their schools are more than 2miles away.
All the schools are oversubscribed.

@Jumbojade

Poor mums who can't afford a car (or can't drive) do this already, including myself.

Coats, macs, umbrellas and whelly boots all exist

You're not made of sugar

Is it a private school? If so, they certainly do have control. My dc's private prep made it a condition of entry that parents signed up to a parking code of conduct. If the neighbours ever complained about a car the school would contact the parents with a warning. One family was asked to leave because they kept ignoring warnings. It helped that the HM of the school lived on one of the roads near the school so cared what his neighbours thought!!

@Itsneverwhatitseems is it a case of they applied for a reception place and they didn't get a place or they moved to where they lived now after that?

Just block the bloody drive with cones or something and put a no parking sign

I would block them in , the only thing they can do is call the police that will take ages and if I was you I would then move it out if the way as police was arriving ! Sorry but parking in others drives is never acceptable

Same here

Technically, the residents of housing estates have pro indiviso shares of ownership of communal areas, which includes visitor bays.

I see parents doing this every single day. And they have done since the school opened in 1996

Oh poor them. It would be their own fault.

OP you WBU to NOT block them in. Then either go for a walk, or sit in your front garden swilling wine and tell them you’ll move when you sober up!

This is my pet peeve! Living on a main road where every CF likes to park across my drive to go the pub, bookies, tanning place etc! When I'm blocked in, I call the police (non urgent number obviously!) And let them deal with the CF. If I'm blocked out, nothing apparently police can do but I have some lovely notes to put on the windscreen! Sending hugs 💐

Your school had control over how parents parked on the highway because they
made the parents sign an agreement prior to giving the dc a place.
Not all private schools do this , ours didn’t and some drivers blocked the entire single track road network.
I very much doubt state schools could do this as a prerequisite to offering a place …maybe another MN could verify