Am i wrong to park here and would you mess with my wing mirrors if I parked outside your house?

[malificent7]

Long story.
I work in a hospital. Rather than pay for parking, I park on a residential street 10 mins walk away. The residents have their own private parking , garages and visitors parking out the back. No driveways and no yellow lines on the wide road.
I park on the roaf. An aggressive man stopped me one day and told me an ambulance couldn't get past. Plenty of space. I pointed out there was space enpugh and no double yellows bitoved anyway.
From then on whenever i parked on the road my wing mirrors have been messed with. I only park on that street now if all other streets are full.
Am I being unreasonable to a: park there. B: to continue to do so if there are no other options/ last resort?

Sadly many hospitals do not have enough space for staff to park even if they are willing to pay. The alternative is less parking for patients and visitors.

I live in a popular tourist town on one of the nearest streets to the town centre to not have permit parking. In the summer our street is always packed full of visitors parking, and we also have a public transport connection so get people parking on our street to go away on holiday. It’s annoying but that’s the way it goes when you live in a busy/popular area.

Sounds like you are parking legally. As long as you’re being sensible and not blocking driveways etc.

some people get very weird about people parking on “their” road. If they have a problem then they can complain to council and get permit parking.

hospital parking costs a fortune and from what I heard theres not enough anyway. So of course you can park on another road.

tuck your mirrors in and if they get damaged report to police.

The problem is there's more and more people/cars, and fewer facilities (our town used to have more hospitals and schools than now, even those there's many more people), and most employers used to provide free parking, and for those on a low wage, this can be a real problem. And most of the ones complaining no doubt park outside other people's houses when it suits them. I would never damage anyone's car/threaten anyone for parking, not only because it's nasty but because I wouldn't want a criminal record. I used to live near a school but had no problem with any legal parking, even if it was annoying.
You could get one of those dashcams that go in parking mode, and report him to the police for any damage/harassment. Remember a few years ago when people made spaces for nurses? Bet he was one of the clappers, too.

But surely they can if they want to.

I said that it is annoying that people from the hospital park there to give OP the perspective of people living on such a street. I did not say that they should be prevented from parking there at all. I do think that people should park sensibly, and if you park in the route out of three people's drives, just round a bend and behind a bush so that you're not visible until the people coming out of those drives are a foot away then don't be surprised if someone smacks into your car. There would be exactly the same issue with cars driving out of the drives. Highway Code states that you shouldn't park within ten feet of a junction unless in a marked bay, and the cars parking in that spot are flouting that. And no I'm not doing a diagram because your post was bloody rude.

@GlasgowGal2014 And funny you mention buying country estates because when these houses were built in the 1970s the street was in a rural area surrounded by fields. The hospital only opened 15 years ago, and the street wasn't designed in the expectation of residents having multiple cars so is narrow with no additional parking and lots of communal landscaped areas, hence the blind spots.

It’s not illegal but is obviously annoying the residents. I’ve noticed people parking where my daughter lives and then catching the bus into the city. It’s annoying. There’s no place for residents without drives to park and it limits the parking places for people using the local shops. Just pay for parking.

I'm on the fence.

It blows my mind that people who buy or rent houses near schools, hospitals, popular shopping streets etc get surprised when they are blocked in or inconvenienced. Should they be? No, absolutely not, but when did we stop expecting it? It's so strange to me.

But also, I'm that person that parks 5 minutes from school just so I know those daily emails sent out aren't about me 😁😁

I'd like to see where you park really. Because 10 minutes is fairly far to park away so I can't see why it's unreasonable if there is free parking available.

Most of the space leading to our hospital is yellow lines or permits

I don't understand the logic that we should only always park in our own driveway or in car parks, never in ordinary streets because we may be bothering the residents. That is so weird.

If there are no double yellows or restrictions it's fair game - it's a public road and residents have no more rights to park there than anyone else. I do exactly the same to avoid paying £20ish a day to go to work.

Its not their road, plus you're a hospital worker, so a little tolerance would go a long way, however are there alternative modes of transport, public transport, bicycle etc

I live near a school and a shopping precinct. I don't have a driveway to park on. Cars park on my road for the shops and at school drop off/pick up it's rammed.

Meh. The shops and school were there before I moved here. I knew it'd be busy for parking.

Don't like it, don't move there. It's either legal or illegal to park there. If it's legal, it's fair game. What isn't legal is damaging someone else's car. It's STILL illegal to damage someone else's car even if they're parked illegally (which the OP isn't).

But it isn't illegal.

Nothing anyone can do about it.

Nothing can be done legally about it.
As the OP has seen, the cars can be messed with.
I'm with the residents I'm afraid. I would be pretty annoyed if the same car parked outside my house every day.
Where I live, people put cones outside their houses to stop people parking near the train station. The cones are not legal and cause controversy. However I am aware (from driving past) that two of the houses who put out the cones, have residents that are picked up every morning by a mini bus that takes the occupants to a residental day centre. The mini bus could not pull up outside the houses if cars parked there for the day.

If it's that much of a problem the residents should lobby the council to make the street resident only parking.

Otherwise, nope. It's fair game for anyone to park on the public highway, poncy cones or no.

If you’re paying your road tax and parking legally they can bloody well jog on. Personally I would hang around and try to have a word with whoever was touching my car the cheeky sod.

You aren’t doing anything wrong op. Keep doing it.

What time of the day are you arriving OP?
In theory I don't care that random people park their car outside my house all day.The reality is I get woken up at 5:45am when they arrive for work because they play music and slam their car doors, sometimes people park across the drive, they drop their cigarette butts in the street (the growing pile in the same area is a give away), they increase wear and tear on the street but seemingly never report the potholes themselves. So yes, sometimes commuters do grate.

For everyone saying lobby the council, in my area you get to put forward a proposal once a year and then the majority need to agree. It's not a quick or guaranteed process. They did agree to impose some restrictions on half the street, but this just shifts and concentrates the problem.

As I say, in theory it doesn't bother me. The reality is that unfortunately not everyone is considerate of others.

I work in a hospital, luckily I can park on site unlike many of my collegues who park either on one of the 2 park and ride schemes 15 to 20 mins by bus away or who park on the street. The local residents complained 10 years ago so a multi story was rejected at planning as a result and tried to get parking as resident only near the hospital which opened in th 80' s. It backfired and its now double yellows so they are cross about that too. If staff dont park on the roads patients and visitors do, parking is awfull for vistors who are advised to arrive an hour early to park. Most.of the car parks have been built on for hospital expansion. Unfortunatly if you live near a large hospital/ employer/ stadium I think you must realise people will park on your streets.

I agree about contacting adult social services but I would also contact the police as others have said they may know of her.

Mamy yrs ago a lady knocked at our door , DM answered. She asked if June was in. DM said Im Sorry yuu must have the wrong address. 2 mins later she was back asking again.
DM realised something was a miss (she was a RMNurse) invited her in, made her a cuppa and called the police to report it.
Police knew exactly who she was from her description, knew where she lived and contacted her family. Police said theyd come out but DM said as long a sher daughter was called , she would happily walk her home and wait until her daughter arrived.

iOn a personal note DM was not known for showing compassion, very practical, and as a kid I can member being amazed at how gentle and caring she was with this lady.

DD works in a hospital, she’s pays £46 a month to park on someone’s drive through one of those Park On My Drive type schemes. She loves it, always free, chats to the elderly man whose house it is and knows no one is going to vandalise or clip her car.

Well, if someone did something about the parking illegally they could end up paying the cost in court.

If you move somewhere (as I did) near a hospital, school, city centre, shops, any other major attraction, cars will park there. The only resolution is permit parking. Or breaking the law.

@Oneforallandallforone the residents that go to day centre could apply for Disabled Parking space .

I certainly wouldn't mind if a nurse parked in front of my house all day . So much for clapping for the NHS .😟

They don’t own the road. If they don’t like you parking there, tell them to take it up with the car parks which are mostly unaffordable

Im not an NHS worker but going by friends and threads online, some hospitals are extortionate to park in!

I work in a shop and we all have to pay to park, it’s unfortunately a cost of work the way people have to pay to commute.