People with driveways parking on the street

[Hellskitchen24]

I live in a long row of terraces. Most roads are terraced here, as I live in a fairly working class town. This means that the only people with driveways are the end of the terraces. I live a few doors down from the end.

My neighbour has in the last 6 months or so decided to mostly stop using their driveway. It’s a relatively fit retired couple. They probably only use the car a handful of times per week, and instead park it on the road outside our houses. They’ve got this thing now where on the odd occasion they do have it on their drive, as soon as the person moves from the space outside our house, they are up and put their car on it. Even if that’s at the crack of dawn; I’ve seen them peering out at the window at 6:30am, on the rare occasion I’ve got that space and I leave for work. They will be loitering by the door waiting for me to leave.

I don’t quite understand the logic. They are only one of two houses on the street with two dedicated parking spaces, with a perfectly wide accessible drive. I get back quite late at night from work and have to park several streets away when I’m heavily pregnant. So admittedly it does wind me up a bit seeing their empty driveway while all the other residents struggle to park. I know legally they are doing nothing wrong at all. But would I be unreasonable to put a note through their door asking them to possibly use their perfectly accessible driveway to free up more space for the majority who don’t have off road parking?

I would be very wary doing this if it's a dropped kerb, as any passing policeman or traffic warden would give you a ticket and potentially even have you towed away. You can't even park across your own driveway if the kerb is dropped.

years ago a neighbour of a friend of mine used to do that so when he came home one night with nowhere to park, he parked on their drive, they were not happy

People are weird about parking. You can’t leave them a note telling them to park on their driveway! They must avoid doing so for a reason and it’s none of your business.

Sadly like others have said, nothing you can do. We have neighbours (we call them the Annoyington's and my child thought that was actually their name :D) who have SIX CARS and park them all the street. It's very annoying. But nothing we can do they aren't breaking the law. Watch like a hawk for when the go out an immediately park there!

OP I am your neighbours metephorically speaking! I paved my drive and gave up half my garden to do this. I didnt mind as it was convinient for me to do this. It made space on the street and worked well for a week. The other neighbours blocked me in at every turn I spent most of my days going round to various houses asking them to let me out..sometimes they wouldnt answer the door,other times they huffed and puffed and made it seem like i was doing them a favour my life was not my own, I could not come and go when I needed to for the selfish,reckless fkers, After months of this I opened my gates and parked outside. I will not put my car away again. Now I inconvinience them as it was back to normal before I did the work...no one plays fair or is respectful or considerate and I was fed up with been shit on ..sick of being late through no fault of my own and begging and pleading for them to let me out ..no that doesn't work for me.

We're on a terraced street - our side has driveways the other doesn't. People are forever deciding to just park across our driveway and leaving their cars, and it's so irritating. I do sometimes leave the car out if I know I'll be going out again that day, as it's not worth the stress of having to go knocking on doors to get people to move (particularly as there are certain households that act like you've murdered their children when you just want to get your car out).

It's probably that.

Or for a few weeks last year we parked on the road as we had a loose tile on the roof that we were waiting to have fixed. Wasn't worth the risk.

But ultimately, they're not even being selfish for parking on the road. They have the EXACT same right to park there as anyone else does! It's a public road!

The only way to guarantee you have parking is if YOU buy a house with a parking space. If you choose not to, you can't complain about not having somewhere to park.

And where we used to live, a slightly different but annoying issue, our neighbours used to put cones out to stop anyone else parking there, like four cars wide. Didn't really bother us as we had a drive but drove others bonkers. People just used to move the cones. Conegate.

This will really annoy me for sure, but as you pointed out they are not doing anything illegal, so I personally won't be brave enough to talk to them. If you are, you certainly can raise it.

Could you ask them if they would rent you their drive if they are not using it?

YANBU. You have to be a special kind of inconsiderate arsehole to park on the street, when you have got a perfectly decent driveway. It's the worst kind of selfish, arrogant, inconsiderate twats who do this IMO. Usually self-serving and selfish in other parts of their life too.

The 'if it's legal to park there what's the problem' brigade always show up on these kinds of threads. This is a case of 'just because you CAN do something, that doesn't necessarily mean you SHOULD!' If you have a driveway, stick your fucking car on it!

Maybe everyone in the street should park on the road eh?!

I would be so tempted to get together with another neighbour, and completely block them in - every time. (And then piss off out for a few hours.)

I like the idea of asking if you can use their driveway given that they don't seem to use it, you can't park outside your house when they are there, and you are pregnant.

My mum and dad had these neighbours for a while outside of their home where the parking is a public lay-by. Everyone just used to drive over the cones or push them up so they sat between parked cars. They gave up after replacing them multiple times.

Well that's a really aggressive and nasty thing to suggest.

Also, although the council might not actually do anything about it, if the Council has set up a "Special Enforcement Area" then it is an offence to block a driveway (even if there isn't a car on it) without the consent of the occupier of the premises.

Where I live, the whole city is covered by this and the local council hand out PCNs at £70 a go (reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days).

@BatchCookBabe wow - angry much??

Why don’t you knock on and speak to them?

My road is a free for all but no one parks outside the house opposite me because we know the lady living there has mobility issues. If someone was heavily pregnant and said they were struggling, it would be the same.

They can’t know you’re inconvenienced unless you tell them. The reason they park on the road is irrelevant - they’re legally entitled to and you haven’t given them a reason to park in a different spot.

Yeah, so what?

Glad Im not your neighbour - you sound like a nightmare @BatchCookBabe

And I'm glad I'm not yours. YOU sound like a nightmare.

Now go park on the road even though you have a driveway. Clearly you are someone who does this, and I have hit a raw nerve. that's why you're so salty!

Dont take this advice, it's ridiculous. And you're committing a traffic offence if they've got a dropped kerb.

You ok hun?

I do also agree with this. If the parking is that difficult, someone else would stop you parking there if they didn't.

For me the problem is getting out of my drive when cars are parked on either side of it. We are on a busy road and we have to turn onto oncoming traffic and its impossible to see anything. The biggest culprit are our next door neighbours who also have a drive and are the first to complain if someone does it to them

Fine, are you HUN? 😆

I very much agree with this. There are some roads here where the driveways are very narrow and people park outside of the permitted parking areas and make it very difficult indeed to either get into or exit from the driveway.

Haha I obviously hit a nerve with you darling - well done for constructing a sentence without a swear word 🙃 @BatchCookBabe