People who don’t use their drives. Why? 😆

[emmerdaleorcorrie]

I’m really curious about this. I doubt it’s just my area. It doesn’t annoy me or anything like that, but after living in a terrace with on street parking for years, I love having a drive now and can’t wrap my head around people who don’t use theirs. There’s a house a few doors down with 2 cars always parked on the street, while their drive sits empty. I’ve been living here for nearly a year, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car on their drive. I only noticed because one of their cars is always parked on a bend, forcing everyone to drive on the other side of the road to get past.

My whole estate is like this, with cars scattered everywhere, on pavements, and drives just sitting there empty. I know that some people don’t want to play car jenga, having one car in the drive and another on the street, but not using it at all seems a bit odd. Houses with parking usually cost more too. I feel more at ease knowing my car is safer and less likely to get damaged. It also frees up more space for guests.

I don’t know, I just think it’s a little odd, but what can you do. I don’t think there’s a law that saids you have to park on your drive haha. Is there anyone on here that does this? 😆

Our neighbours use their drive overnight, but the husband gets up at the crack of dawn every morning without fail to put both their cars out on the road outside their house. Has done for the entire 18 years we've lived here. I reckon he got blocked in once and has never recovered from the trauma!

Having moved from a house with a drive to one without, we spent the last couple of year hating it! Most of the time could get parked outside within a couple of houses length which is fine but it always seemed to be when we needed to pack the car up with a load of stuff or unload a boot of shopping that we couldnt get parked anywhere near - sometimes several streets away, especially when the rugby club had something on.
We have lane at the back of the house which the garden backs on to and there all the houses garages face too so we rebuilt the falling down garage and had a driveway/parking wide enough for 3 cars laid. Best thing we have ever done!! Just the knowing you can come home, park and get inside. Been 6 months and still the novelty has not worn off!

I love my drive too. We have 3 vehicles and could fit up to 4 on the drive, but tend to have two on the drive which can both get in and out without disturbing the other, and one on the road.

mostly people use their drive on my road, but the guy across the road use to get his car out every morning and park it outside his house then move it in every night 🤣

Pure laziness because they don’t like swapping cars around (or driving it into a garage). When we couldn’t afford a house with a double width drive we swapped around cars for years until we could buy our current house. We did our time, but that’s beneath other people apparently 🤷‍♀️

DP and me do this! But no one in the street has said it’s an issue. I have a long narrow drive that fits one car in front of the other. DP leaves and comes home first. He parks on the road to let me drive into the drive. He does move his car to the drive after dinner, but that could be quite a few hours after I have come home. Sometimes he forgets

We have a double drive to the side of our house, so one car in front of the other. The majority of the time we use it for both cars. Sometimes though if one of us is getting back and knows the other needs to leave first instead of blocking them in we’ll park in front of the house. I can’t see why anyone would choose not to put any car on the drive?!

Yeah I can’t be arsed at 11pm ish/ 5am to move a car off the drive just to get mine out and then park it back on. It be car goes on and the other parks across the road. I’m not pissing about swapping cars around.

18 months ago we moved to a house with a drive big enough to park side by side after 15+ years of having one allocated parking space 400 yards from the house that we had to park in tandem - the novelty still hasn't worn off to be honest, it brings me great joy to park less than a few steps from the front door but maybe I need to get out more.

We live on the same street as a school and I have noticed that people closer to the school tend to park on the street so I assume its to stop people parking outside their house?

I also have to tell delivery drivers, food shop delivery etc. to pull onto the drive as they seem unsure so possibly they've have been told not to use peoples drives previously - absolutely bonkers.

I don’t use mine because the previous owner had a drive put in but neglected to have the kerb dropped. She also had brick posts put on either side which an old Ford fiesta might get between but my car won’t fit through the gap. It’s on my list of things to fix

My drive isn't wide enough for my ford focus (so quite a normal sized car). We have a garden wall which is connected to my neighbours with two pillars at the entrance to the drive, then a wall down the side and a raised curb on the other side. I've tried to get the car on before and it is so, so tight that it scuffs the wheels.

Car Brain!

For what its worth I suggest

1. Vehicles over a certain size - vans. 4x4's motorhomes etc should NOT be allowed to park on the road overnight without a permit, and
2. There should be where necessary controls on the number of vehicles allowed too be connected to a particular property

Ours has got too narrow as cars have got bigger. We used to have two and we'd park the runabout the street and the good car in the drive. So might have one car on the street with an empty drive.

I live just off a fairly narrow road that gets used as a rat run, and if there’s roadworks it’s an official diversion.

Everyone has a massive drive - big enough for at least 2 cars plus a garage but the vast majority of people park on the road. Theres big motorhomes, cars parked too close to corners so you can’t see if you’re turning out, big work vans, etc all blocking the road while driveways sit empty.

It’s very annoying, especially during busy times as the road can get gridlocked.

If there’s roadworks and the road is being used as a diversion (so buses, lorries, etc use it) the council suspends parking along there and everyone then manages to park on their drives - whilst moaning endlessly they can’t park on the road.

It baffles me.

I’ve wondered this too 😅

Some people use the drive/garage for storage, some can’t be bothered shuffling cars around, and some just find street parking easier. There’s no law saying you have to use your drive.

Parking on a bend though… that’s the bit that would annoy me more than the empty drive!

If I pull into my drive headfirst, I then have to reverse out afterwards. This means looking behind both on the road AND on the pavement left and right in case someone is out walking. So it's much easier to just leave the car on the road! If I reverse in first, I still have problems.

It’s odd but they have every right to park where they want as long as they’ve paid their road tax.

We never park in our drive and the neighbours probably think we are weird.

The reason is that we have a really steep driveway and DP went a bought a stupid low car that is so low to the ground that he's worried he will damage it. And I am too scared that I would roll back and squish a neighbourhood cat or worse as it's so steep!

In my road people do this as the driveways are narrow and others park right up or overlapping the driveway. This makes it really difficult to get out safely so I can understand why some people do it.

Of course, they can. I wasn’t implying otherwise. But I do worry about accidents sometimes. The visibility isn’t great right now with all the parked cars and vans on the street, especially at the junctions. There’s even a massive American motorhome on the main road exiting the estate, right on a bend, making it impossible to see anything unless you creep forward to check if it’s clear. A lot of people speed through here (which is a problem on its own), but it wouldn’t be nearly as bad if there weren’t so many vehicles scattered about. Plus, there are loads of kids and cats that live here, so I just hope nobody gets hurt one day.

I wonder if they tell their insurance they park on their private drive or the public road….

Not being funny, but are the cars parked on the road actually theirs? I have a large paved front area, but no car. Neighbours cars are frequently parked in front of my house.

I don't - tiny drive and gap to get in, so is a pain to get in and out. Makes putting bins in and out difficult. Looks more pleasant without a car on the drive. Only use the car once every few weeks, so it's not a problem if I have to park a couple of minutes away.

If people are parking on bends and causing problems then you can ask the council to put double yellow lines there - they did this on my road.

We never use our drive as the back street that it's on is horrendous - filled with potholes and I've personally destroyed two tyres out there over the years.

I love my drive and car parking space. 🥰

The drive is over 200 metres long and about 4 cars wide as it’s inbetween two fields plus my house has gravel all around the outside so you drive up the drive and park in front or at the side or back of the house and you don’t have to reverse if you don’t want to, but drive all the way round and back out again.

No issues parking if we have a party and no nearby neighbours. 😊