It's a parking one!

[Themermaidspool]

I’m looking for some unbiased opinions and if there is a solution to this issue.
We live at the top of a hill on the corner of two roads. Our neighbours opposite also live on the adjacent corner. We’ve been here two years, our neighbours have been here for four. We both have two cars and they have a driveway for one car. Ours takes two just. It’s a quiet part of town so there is lots of parking space nearby. Our neighbours always park in exactly the same spot directly opposite our driveway. This means you can’t reverse out and swing the car round in one go. You also can't see it as there's no lighting and it's black. Annoying but not the end of the world. After a number of near misses the inevitable happened this week and I reversed into their car. (It was raining, I was rushing to pick up child from nursery but no excuse I’m 100% at fault. To be fair they were very good about it and as the damage was quite minor they agreed to letting us try and polish the scratches out which thankfully removed the damage. While discussing, I asked if they would mind parking slightly up or down (still in front of their house/garden) but this was flat out refused as they don’t want to park under the trees. Fair enough it’s their car and they have a right to
Park wherever. Neither of us can park around the corner due to double yellows. If we park both cars on the drive we just can’t get the cars in/out easily / get kids out so we end up putting one on the road. Now I’m so worried about hitting the car again that partner and I now park both cars on the road. This means that we are making it harder for the neighbours to get their car off their drive. Is there a solution or do I just need to suck it up? My biased view is that they only need to move their car about 2m (which is still not directly under a tree but closer) or outside our house (where there is space) and life’s easier. We generally get on, take in parcels for eachother, have a drink a few times a year so I don’t want to fall out over it.

The point about not falling out with them is important - do hang onto this perspective as it's easy to lose it.

How would you feel about asking them to park on your side instead? Then if anyone's using the space opposite yours then it's your partner, so you can move the car potentially or (heavens forbid) brave their lime tree yourselves.

Please see above mitigating factors, poor visibility, street lights out, raining heavily, black car. Going so slowly it did not damage the car and yet did not see it in time.
I realise it sounds like we have an answer to everything. What I want to know is are we being unreasonable in asking for some flexibility, not are we being unreasonable in not reversing onto the driveway.
The flexibility would be - park 2m further up. Park outside our house.
Long term we will save to try to increase our driveway and help some of the above. Neighbours have just reduced theirs from 2 to 1.

I agree that you need to reverse into your drive.

This is exactly what I had to do when I once lived in a street with an extremely narrow road and complete arseholes for neighbours (especially the neighbour who filled his driveway full of gnomes, instead of using it to park on) I think him and his son actually ‘got off’ on watching me struggle, therefore I became fucking ACE at reverse parking! They parked right on the entrance to my drive too, even though (as diagram shows) he had ample room to park further down! I also had a car parked opposite usually as the woman across the road couldn’t be arsed to use her drive either.

As far as I can tell you have plenty of manoeuvre room to reverse easily.

Ah sorry I think I missed a bit in your OP where you asked them to park on your side.

Your neighbours are being selfish.

I don’t think it sounds like you have an answer to everything. You don’t have an answer for the fact that if you can’t see a car then you definitely couldn’t see a person. Funnily enough when you’ve killed someone the fact that it was raining doesn’t really cut the mustard.

If you don’t have visibility to reverse off, you either need to reverse on or park elsewhere.

I don’t think you were being unreasonable to ask, I would accommodate this request, especially if I thought it was causing you issues reversing out, but then again they might be thinking the same thing as the majority on this thread, just reverse in.

Genuinely don't see why they can't move their car. Parking directly opposite your drive when there is loads of space not too, is a dick move.

Shall not pile on about careful reversing as you sound aware anyway. Understand that you want to reduce risks of it ever happening again, I would feel the same way.

Possibly look into motion lighting so that car is visible?

The neighbours have every right to park where they like.
If the OPs driving is so poor/driveway has such bad visibility that she hits parked cars and acknowledges that she can't see pedestrians or cyclists then the drive should not be used, and it is up to her to find somewhere safe to park!

Other than the tree sap and potentially falling branches, and bird poo..

Also the tree in the diagram looks like it may be too close to the corner / junction to legally park under.

Absolutely happy for them to park outside ours. Also happy for us to park on the road aswell but seems an inconvenience to everyone else when we have a drive. I think this is the usable solution especially in the winter.

It was not inevitable you'd hit your neighbours car. You should be more careful. Definitely park on the road, opposite their house a good idea and see how they like it.

I don't know how narrow your road is but around here people park opposite driveways as much as anywhere else. I think you are being a bit precious.

You need to reverse onto your drive. I think your neighbours are being a bit twatty parking opposite your drive, but you need to reverse onto yours so you can drive off it safely. How do you cope in car parks?

Absolutely the OP thinks that absolves them if they hit someone.

Reverse onto drive and stop expecting the neighbour and rest of world to move for you.

I used to park under trees at work, my car was black and the tree sap on it was visible, it can permanently damage paintwork. My brothers parking space at his home is under a tree and his car is constantly covered in bird droppings. I would avoid regularly/daily parking under a tree if I could.

OP you either need to park elsewhere if you do not have the skills to manoeuvre on/off your own drive or extend your driveway.

Other options might be to contact the council and ask for more street lighting or road markings to prevent parking opposite your drive if it is genuinely a road and not a driver issue.

OP it's fine to ask but ok for them to say no. I'm sure I'd want to park as close to my house as possible so I could easily get shopping etc out the car.

Can I suggest you get some better lights out the front that enables you to see better. You should also be reversing in yes.

You didn't see a car you know is usually there?

You need to sort your drive out so that it properly fits two cars and which you can easily reverse onto. You can't make them park elsewhere.

Unless you're driving a mini bus i cant see how you don't have space to reverse out. Also their car is black? But you have rear and reverse lights so no excuse.
Just reverse onto your drive.

Quite simple, reverse onto your drive, drive out.

Reverse one onto your drive and the other to the right of your drive.
Is there a reason they don't go on their driv?

Probably best to have some more lessons or give up your licence.

If you can't safely get off your drive, surely you shouldn't be parking on it?

Park opposite their drive or outside your house. If they comment say you've but their car once and don't want it to happen again. If the won't change, you have to.

Similar issue on my road, where the neighbour opposite frequently allows visitors to park across his drive, which is directly opposite ours. We always reverse onto our drive, so there's no issue getting out again, but as the road is narrow it's a proper fucker to reverse in through the gate without enough room to swing if we come back to find somebody there.

Someone always seems to come up behind us mid-manoeuvre and has to wait while we do a multiple reverse-forward-back shimmy in the limited space. It's really annoying for everyone concerned, apart from the neighbour who thinks he's doing someone a good turn instead of letting them park, yes, 2 metres further up the road. I get it, OP.

Simple solution is for you to park on the road. As you have said there are plenty of space on the road and then very easy for you to park and leave.