Our car storage strategy in the UK is a joke. AIBU?

[JacquesHarlow]

Note: I'll put the disclaimers at the end of the thread to try and mitigate against the usual "never seen this before OP, you sound overly invested" gaslighters.

AIBU to think that for a small island with a rapidly growing population, our approach to car storage and parking is ... well, a joke?

And that we need to start restricting street parking somehow to stop the households who have three or four cars on the street, making life a misery for others and for visitors?

Hear me out please for a minute.

I admit I have mainly lived in suburbs or zone of major cities. And today, I have a driveway that can park 5 or 6 cars.

However in the nine places I've lived, and the many places I've visited, you see the same things:

• It doesn't matter if it's a street of semi-detached 4 beds, or a row of Victorian terraces, or a new build estate: you find houses not using driveways, parking cars nose to nose, often on kerbs.

• Even if a house has a driveway, the British driver's strange attitude to owning the street in front of their house, means they'd rather park on the road instead of the driveway. Meaning more congestion on the kerbside, fewer places for visitors etc.

• And let's face it, many can't even reverse onto the driveway or pilot their car with enough skill to use it

• Away from driveways, I have visited streets with HMOs where friends are tearing their hair out, people with 7 cars to one house. Imagine what happens to street parking then..

• Or it doesn't even need to be an HMO. Billy big balls can buy vintage pick up trucks and line them up on the street nose to nose and take all available parking. As long as you're within the permit structure, or if no CPZ, then all the cars are taxed and MOT'd? Then you're fine to have as many cars as you want on the street

• Finally, people who have three or four cars, tend to have the "advantage" in situations like this. They usually have one or two cars "in place", so if parking is tight, they can (and do) "shuffle things" around to ensure they keep their road positions.

So, AIBU to suggest another way? Can we limit the number of cars owned to two a household on a street, and with a designated storage place needing to be named for anything over 2 cars? Should all suburban streets have some form of visitor permits so that people aren't parking three streets away because big Billy has to be able to see his pickups from his window at all times? Can we have proper enforcement from councils to ensure wheelchair users, buggies, young people can actually traverse our streets without having to brush past metal which has taken up part of the kerb?

We're a small island with a lot of history. We weren't designed to have two rows of cars parked down either side of suburban and urban roads, with delivery drivers racing towards nervous nellies who then refuse to reverse.

We are however horribly in denial about parking. Councils are addicted to the revenue, or ignore the problems if they do exist, knowing that there's little or no alternative.

All I see on threads like these in the past are people saying

• "My eldest daughter uses her car for work, I use mine, so does my DH, and we have something fun for the weekends. I have every right to my four cars on the street. YABU"

• "You're advocating for 15 minute cities, you will own nothing and be happy, you're a communist, YABU"

Why are we so addicted to car use to the point where anything now goes?

AIBU to ask for a more forward thinking solution to car ownership, where people aren't owning five cars on one small suburban street, without a driveway? Surely car ownership is far too cheap if that's an option for any regular Joe.

What do you think...AIBU?

"Addicted to car use" just how am I supposed to work get my children to education yes food can be ordered in but I shop in aldi its click and collect there

Taxis are expensive
Public transport? We dont have many buses here in my semi rural area

We cant create 15 minute city's out of the infrastructure that we have unless we build entirely new city's currently in my area they are building houses on farmland nowhere near public transport nowhere near schools or doctors no shop being built they ended up redoing the plans to put in car parking because people who live there will need it

nOlives

In 20 years time will you still be taking your children to school? This is more about the future than the here and now. People take each child to school for 5 years at primary, with a birth rate of 1.4 thats going to be an average of 7.5 years. The next generation might do things differently, as different choices become available

"It means there are next to no "spaces" on the kerbside for a visitor."

So you don't want people to be able to park outside their own home, in order for visitors to be able to park instead?
How on earth is the convenience of a visitor who might come for an hour once in a blue moon more important than someone who lives there 24/7?

I’m advocating against the psychological state people get into where they think owning a car for every family member is normal, and that they should be entitled to line all four or five vehicles up on a tiny road and deprive visitors or other residents of ever using any vehicle on that street

But people are all or nothing, it's either each family member owing a car or no cars at all. The concept of having just one car per household and having other viable cheaper options of transport is just not something they can envisage happening. People shout but public transport is rubbish and taxis are expensive - what if they were better and cheaper than private car ownership, or cycling was safer and quicker. I hope change comes to car ownership and I can give up driving altogether at 80 as there are better forms of transport available.

My Picanto costs around £50 a month to keep on the road that includes insurance, maintenance, repairs, MOT. If we want to factor in the purchase price it was 4k 17 years ago. I do of course have to put fuel in it.

I doubt I could hire a car from a car club for 2 days for that?

Can anyone share what they pay to hire?
Do you have to add fuel or charge if electric as part of your hire?

How big is a picanto, surely it is already the smaller car which was one of the suggestions?

I've had multiple issues with parking in our estate. Sometimes it has been people parking fully on the pathway leading into the estate, completely blocking it, sometimes it's been people parking in the entrance of the estate, preventing the bin wagon getting in so our bins weren't emptied. Now it is some fella who doesn't even live in our estate parking his 3 ginormous work vans and trailers, plus his and his wife's cars all the way down the length of the road into our estate, taking up every available parking space. He is also completely blocking the pathway down the side of his house, forcing everyone to walk down the road. He has been reported numerous times but nothing has been done, even when he was screaming at the elderly people who live nearby who complained they struggled to get to the shops because of the way he parks all his vehicles. The house he bought has absolutely no parking, no garage or driveway. I just can't understand what possessed him to buy that property when he has so many enormous vehicles!!

But you keep arguing people should be cycling/e-biking instead instead now, talking about current schemes etc.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8e6xlxrlxo

This happened last month on my route to work. People just are not going to do this in places like Wiltshire and Somerset where roads are 70mph dual carriageways like the A36 or 60mph country roads.

I'm not arguing people should be cycling now I suggested smaller cars and other solutions to the excess car storage issue, cycling is an alternative mode of transport that can be used and is often quicker and could be used, It doesn't have to be used instead of a car for every single trip. Some families now choose to get rid of one car and keep the other, but use a variety of other transport modes. The future might bring further alternatives, nothing wrong with change

Are other shops available?

Completely disagree. On a train you can get up and walk somewhere else. In a traffic jam you are stuck.

Owning a car is a massive hassle for many. Try thinking outside the metal box.

They are more expensive

Not everyone works near their homes, and they need cars, especially where l live public transport is crap, extremely unreliable. So in your perfect world what do you suggest? I have four cars at my house but am lucky enough to have a double garage, which we use and a large driveway. Not everyone has that luxury, my son & his wife certainly don't, they have to park on the road, they don't have a drive. They have careers were they are both on call, their isn't public transport at 3.00am...Bet you've not given people like mine a thought....fgs!

Is your car free to run?

We can't even park on the street on our road without buying a permit for ourselves and also any visitor

There's a case for people in your line of work having something akin to a Blue Badge I'd say, giving you the right to park where other people can't while you're working.

You don’t feel at night especially on a train with fewer carriages , that a would be robber or attacker would just follow someone? Most late trains don’t have guards on board.

Im a male and I’ve felt vulnerable on night trains at times. You’re a still stuck.

No. I don't have that fear nor have had that experience.

Try stepping away from the activist mindset and you might be able to convince people of a better way of doing things. As it is you sound like a sloganeer with no appreciation of diversity.

I live on a country lane where anyone stupid enough to park in the way of the school bus or local tractor would get dragged (none too carefully) out of the way and dumped in the nearest ditch within minutes.
It tends to focus the mind so we all park on our drives or do a deal with a local farmer.

Much amusement when there was a rave in a local wood, and the police & farmers towed all the cars off the road, leaving their bewildered owners wandering around in the dark (no street lights either) 😁

A very suburban problem !

So owning a car is diverse now?

It drives me mad when people don’t used their driveways!

You have no chance of bringing lock up garages to be built with new builds. Every possible inch of land will be built on for profit.

We live in a terraced close with 12 parking bays for 8 houses. Two of the houses have 4 cars each. The remaining 6 houses fight for the other 4 spaces (2 of these houses have two cars). We have shared custody of a disabled wheelchair user but are not entitled to a blue badge bay because he doesn’t live here full time. It’s a nightmare and I regularly have to block people in long enough to get him inside and then go move my car. Both of the 4 car households only have 2 adults living there and both play swapsies with their vehicles to keep certain bays permanently filled. We love our house but long to be able to afford to move because of the parking situation. None of us can have driveways installed because of the tiny front gardens.