Neighbour damaged his car on my drive

[lghtnght]

I moved into my new house 3 months ago and after a few weeks, I noticed that the neighbours across the street were reversing onto my property when they left their house. The road is pretty narrow, so they can't really turn around without reversing onto my drive. Plus, another neighbour parks his car (in blue) on the pavement by their house, which makes it harder for them to pull forward and turn around.

It would be much easier if they just reversed onto their own drive and drove out from there. I don't know why they haven't done that yet. I didn't want to start any drama or fall out with them. I had never talked to them before today and wasn't sure how they'd react if I brought it up, so last weekend I decided to put some garden rocks in the corner instead. Just to clarify, they're on my drive, not on the pavement, in case anyone wonders. So, the neighbour knocked on my door earlier and said that his car got damaged because of the rocks. He insists that they were half on the pavement (not true) and half on my drive.

He asked why I didn't tell him I was putting them there so he could avoid driving over them. He said if there was a problem, I should have just talked to him. I told him it's my drive, on my property. Why would I need to inform him? His car wouldn't have been damaged if he wasn't using my drive… He got really aggressive with me, saying that the previous owners never had any issues and that he's going to call the police and a solicitor about the damage to his car. I haven’t heard anything since. I can't believe I'm even writing this. I’m not sure what to do now! I do feel a bit intimidated by him. Am I being unreasonable?

It is ridiculous to describe driving onto the end of a neighbour's driveway to turn around as trespassing. Utterly ridiculous.

He didn't say he was entitled to continue using it, he said if it was a problem why didn't she tell him.

i wasn't talking about him thinking she's a twat, that's a given, but their mutual neighbours. As a new neighbour she's not exactly endearing herself to the neighbours.

Describing someone using the end of a driveway to turn around as trespassing is ridiculously dramatic.

'ou're being even more ridiculous suggesting he might start parking in her driveway.

He was on the end of her driveway for a few seconds, probably once a day. What an enormous amount of fuss over nothing.

Firstly I don’t understand why you have an issue with him edging onto your drive for a few seconds a day anyway

this is what posters do on MN… they continually gaslight the OP by stating “well, I don’t understand why you would feel this way” and reframing using it as a turning area as “edging”.

Lovely word selection by the way. If a man spreads his legs out on a train seat, most people here accept that’s infringing, spreading, forcing space.

The minute he’s in a car, as per usual all of the normal senses of space and boundaries go out of the window. The OP bought the entirely of her property boundary up to the end of the driveway. If she chose to cover it with grass and plants, that is her wish to do so. Not his to see it as a continual piece of public access land.

But back to my point. You don’t need to understand, @Sartre . It’s her property. Legally she can be however she likes about it.

secondly if you really can’t stand it, why on earth didn’t you speak to him about it?

Judging from the man’s response , how do you think that would have gone?

In any case, what I find most batshit about all of this, is how much people seem to frame driving as a series of expectations

“I didn’t expect to see those rocks because they weren’t there yesterday”.

How absolutely batshit is this? If someone cycles alone, and tomorrow they have their wife with them, and a person reverses into their drive too early because they were only expecting one cyclist to go past… how do I think that would stand up in court?

Driving is about observation. He got close to home and got lazy as many people do, switched off, and just swung his car around in the basis of probabilities and expectation. Well for me that’s shit driving and the OP shouldn’t be blamed for it.

It doesn't matter, what matters is she doesn't want him doing it. That's it. Why is that so hard to understand?

I don't believe for one moment OP is scared of him. You don't do that sort of significant thing to someone you're scared of.

I'm not in the least bit scary to my neighbours and, if you did that to me deliberately, you bet I'd not take it lying down.

He was on the end of her driveway for a few seconds, probably once a day. What an enormous amount of fuss over nothing.

Let’s reframe this one.

Imagine if someone posted that their neighbour wheeled their work trolley across the OP’s driveway twice a day instead of going the longer way to use their own driveway.

You would have loads of people posting “CF, what about privacy” etc etc

The minute people get into cars and there’s a whole reframing of what’s right and wrong .

Take the person out of the car in your mind for a minute.

If a man walked on and off a woman’s driveway , twice a day, every single day of the year, without ever asking permission …. how would that make most of us feel?

I suppose this depends what OP's end goal was.

If her end goal was just to be in the right, congratulations, she accomplished that. She laid the trap and the neighbour drove straight into it. He doesn't have a leg to stand on because obviously he technically shouldn't have been using her drive.

Personally I'd rather have a non-hostile relationship with people I'll be living alongside indefinitely than to just be right, though, so I'd have actually talked to him before setting out rocks that you obviously intended to do his car damage. That doesn't take away your moral high ground and it doesn't mean he wasn't in the wrong, but ultimately if people are being thoughtless, as humans often are, the easiest way to resolve that is polite communication, not traps and escalation.

It's the OP who has to deal with however many years of seething enmity in her own street though. Presumably that's what she wanted too.

If she had put a bollard or gates, should she have spoken to the useless driver first?

It's hard to understand that a neighbour can't be told, "Hey, I know that the other people were okay with you doing it, I'm not so comfortable with it, so could you please not do it?"

If I were that guy I'd be like, "Oh, okay, sorry, won't do it again, thanks for letting me know." Now, if you deliberately damaged my car without having talked to me, whole other story.

Take pictures of exactly where the rocks are, his only case is if in fact the rocks are partially on the pavement or overhanging the pavement. Lots of people do this to stop cars taking short cuts across their drives or vans parking half on the drive half on the pavement, your property you can put things where you like (within reason).

Those would be obvious to see. Rocks are lower down. Might be hard to see if he doesn't have a good reversing camera.

Why did the useless driver not ask her? Do you see how this goes? He's in the wrong, he doesn't ask for permission, he assumed he could. He's a twat. Why should she have to tell him it's unacceptable?

So she doesn't have to consult him on what she does on her own driveway?

How did they deliberately damage his car? He just didn't look, it could have been a small child on the driveway, or an expensive delivery left on the drive. Just because you do a manoeuvre often it doesn't mean that you don't have to look.

You really think that would always be his response, 10 times out of 10?

Look , I agree with many of the other posters. Definitely, in Mumsnet-land “we are all assertive and use our words no matter how intimidating the person”, she would have politely asked him.

But this completely ignores the dozens of posters on this thread who have proven that with this kind of debate, people are NOT reasonable and just take instruction.

If OP had a smidgin of fear about this, it would explain why she did what she did.

But what I find flabbergasting is how much people are defending the man for having a reaction to hitting something “unexpected”.

UNEXPECTED.

Because driving of course is all about having the same road markings, road debris, road furniture, every time we set out.

it is still utterly batshit to me that people on this thread are arguing that leaving out “unexpected” debris on your PRIVATE drive, is tantamount to a road traffic offence because the driver could not have “expected” it

As I said earlier in the thread - get people into cars, and all the normal rules of conduct go out of the window.

He could have but I'm picturing he probably only encroaches on her driveway about 1m, if that. If someone uses my driveway to turn around, they will cross about 1m of concrete between the grass strip, there's the footpath, then my driveway. Not forgetting, at least where I am, if you have to turn around anywhere using the edge of a driveway is normal. You can tell some people haven't had real problems if this is a big deal.

Cos the OP wouldn't have had a feud if they'd been polite and said "stop being inconsiderate and don't drive all over my property?"

Maybe if the other guy just wasn't a twat he wouldn't have a damaged car.

MIRRORS.

People have been driving for years without reversing cameras, @SnuggleReal .

If you tilt your mirrors accordingly when reversing, you can see the road you are reversing into.

Let’s be real. the bloke was lazy, switched off and drove to “expectations” not reality. As someone else said earlier in the thread, there could have been a toddler sitting down in the drive in a huff not wanting to go inside. Or a puppy waiting to be put in. Or anything!

🙇🏻‍♀️ it's petty. She admits herself that due to other parked cars it's difficult for him without using the end of her driveway, and I think to care about it is petty. But I have never once said she has to put up with it, simply that instead of doing something she knew would damage his car, she should have just asked him not to do it.

What about that is so hard to understand?

Or eyes. Eyes are good.

We use them to stop us hitting things we don't expect.

It just seems reasonable, if you know that someone is using your driveway that way, that you give them a heads up. The thing is, OP didn't do that because she knew EXACTLY what she was doing. And that doesn't add up, because if the guy was so scary and intimidating, what do you think he's going to be to her now?

Hopefully she never needs support from a neighbour because she's not exactly fostering the neighbourly spirit.

Can't disagree with that. I have, in fact, driven without reversing cameras, it's just been quite a few years and boy are they helpful.

Because it shouldn’t be an unwritten law that he is allowed to use her driveway without asking

Why should she have to ask him to stop doing something he never asked her permission for?

Why is THAT so hard for people to understand?

So she has to

• Ask him to stop doing something that is legally categorised as trespassing
• He doesn’t have to ask permission
• She has to inform him if she changes the topography of her drive, in case as one poster put it, “his reversing camera may not have picked it up”.

WOW.. so that’s not one sided is it?

"Deliberately Damaged"

Hey OP why did you lie in waiting in camouflage to throw rocks at your blind neighbour's car and deliberately damage it as he exited his drive?

Next time make sure you use something more vicious to ensure the car blows up like on the movies.

You know as well as I do that OP dumped those rocks there with intent to teach him a lesson. It wasn't innocent, "I'll make my garden look nice with these rocks, oops, neighbour hit it."