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?

I agree that something needs revision. When I used to visit my Mum in London, I panicked because, even with my Blue Badge, it was impossible to park close enough to her house for me to be able to get to her front door. Stopping many times whilst walking from my car to her house made me feel/look extremely vulnerable.

I no longer travel to see her. Either she comes to me - I have a driveway - or I don't see her at all.

Not sure what can be done though. Her street will only take 1 car/household in terms of space. Most households have 2 cars.

Then you are the problem here. You have five cars and think that’s reasonable because you have a four-five bed house. That is just outrageous. A household should have a limit of 2/3 cars put on it - as it is in my area.

I can’t think of anything worse than needing a car. I’d turn my life upside down before acquiring a car.

This sounds like AI blurb that's relied too much on the marketing blurbs of ride share companies (a common fault with AI - especially google's, is that they tend to take what companies say about what they do at face value.).

Ride sharing with autonomous cars is not likely to replace car ownership. Autonomous cars may well replace human driven ones, but ride sharing does not provide what people want from their cars. Their are significant downsides to ride sharing vehicles, in particular, the lack of reliability at peak times, the inability to store things in them, and the extra costs. They tend to work well for people who don't use a car much and don't have kids in urban areas. But otherwise they are a pale comparison to car ownership.

RawBloomers

This sounds like AI blurb

thats why I stated it was copied and pasted from AI in the post

@SkylarkKitten thank you, I’m so sorry to hear of your discomfort and the madness of a street that can’t support disabled visitors.

I’ve said it before on this thread, but when areas become impossible to visit for people with lower mobility, that tends to tell me we have a problem.

I don’t think we will own cars in 20 years - you’ll just have an app and the driverless “uber” will appear on demand.
Certainly the politicians in charge of our area are doing all they can to discourage car usage. Congestion charges, 20mph, and endless potholes!

@Flamingojune i would love to cycle my kids to school and there are probably areas where this is possible within the country. But its pockets which have excellent facilities such as cycle lanes, good transport links (bus’ , trains, ubers etc) then there are areas where this is non existent.

It would be 3 miles for my children to cycle to school, partially along an a road, partially country lanes. It would then be a further 18 miles for me to continue to work down dual carriageways so just isn’t going to happen.

My point was that it relies on marketing spiel and is not in any way a useful analysis of what car use will be like in the future.

And there are significant down sides to clogging our roads with cars, causing traffic jams, polluting the air, just generally lowering the quality of life for so many - yet here we are doing it. What 'extra costs' are you referring to and why do you need to store things in a box on the road?

so with drops in 17-24 year olds getting a driving licence - who is going to own all these cars? 48% - 27% is a decent enough drop for future differences

There needs to be a better solution for occasional car drivers, and car clubs don’t seem to be the answer. I’d be happy to have one household car (and we did for 4 years) if I could easily have a hire car for a couple of hours when I need it twice or three times a week, but it’s such a pain, and taxis are not reliable either.

So rather than focus on those who want / needs their cars try and reduce ownership for people like me who are half way there already. I know some new developments have had car clubs in the past but no idea if they had been successful.

I think it completely unreasonable to have a situation where people in their mid-20s are unable to afford to move out to their own homes and are effectively banned from car ownership too! For that reason alone I’d never support a policy like yours in my area.

I love having a car, particularly the freedom it brings. For example, when I was bullied at work I had a huge area I could look for a new job in and moved quickly. When I’ve needed to attend specialist medical appointments miles away I could do it quickly and easily rather than spending half a day (each way) on public transport.

Any solution to car storage has to accept that (outside of major cities) people will want cars and will not vote for politicians who try to get rid of them. Personally, I think we need proper enforcement of illegal pavement parking and to require all new build estates to have one driveway space for every room they’re advertising as a double bedroom.

• "Future Trends: 17-24 year olds are increasingly looking to drive, with 85% expecting to drive weekly by 2035 due to convenience over public transport.

That's what the AI slop is telling me! It tells you what you want to hear (and as a pp said is mostly taken from the keyword blurbs on websites selling stuff)

Sorry OP I’ve re- read your post and can see exactly what you’re getting at. I think we all agree that people need cars and there are now adults still living at home with their own cars which ultimately leads to more congestion on residential roads and parking wars.
But people do take the piss. Blokes who own or work for car recovery companies , who rather than leave their truck at work, take their truck home because it’s easier to get to their next job. So they leave their truck parked on a street, taking up 2/3 spaces.

People who won vintage or classic cars that they tinker with - they should keep in a garage or lock up. Again, not fair taking up a parking space for a car they use as a hobby.

Camper vans and bloody caravans- my pet hate for being parked on residential roads, on street parking!

If you own a caravan or camper van and you don’t have a driveway or private garage then pay to park it at a secure park. Stop being so tight and leave it somewhere where it doesn’t inconvenience neighbours. I think it should be law that these caravans should only be on proper parks or on a driveway. If you don’t have a driveway and can’t afford to pay a company to look after it for you then dont bloody have one !

If you want to reduce car ownership and on-road parking, then a fair few things need to happen:

• To reduce the need for a car, an excellent and reliable transport network is essential. Japan was mentioned as an example for limited car ownership, but if you've ever experienced their public transport, you can see why cars are not needed in urban areas. Here, a 10min car journey can take 2.5h on a bus - if the bus turns up, that is. Some buses in my large, almost 100k people strong town, only turn up 4x a day. Outside of major cities, car ownership is essential (and even then, if you regularly visit attractions outside of your own city, it is a hugely expensive and pisstakingly long nightmare to go anywhere by train, coach or bus).
• Cycling is dangerous in this country. Too few cycle routes, too many that just randomly start and end after short sections on pavement, too much on-road cycling on narrow roads, littered and full of potholes. Design dedicated cycle paths and maintain them well enough to get more people cycling.
• If new housing developments are built, add in dedicated facilities to reduce people's need for cars. The more of these are added to the outside of towns and cities without nearby conveniences such as shops, doctors, post offices etc, the more people will need their cars to get anywhere.
• To reduce cars per household, young adults need to be able to move out. That won't happen unless the housing situation stabilises significantly.
• To also reduce car ownership, allow more people to work from home without the constant need for in-person days in the office for no real reason. More people working from home will mean less need for cars overall.
• To reduce on-street parking, more thought needs to be put into alternatives when building. I have a garage I can't use as such, due to the size of my car and being overweight. My super-slim partner struggles with his garage and can barely open his door. Garages are rarely wide enough to cope with the current size of cars (and I don't own a particularly large vehicle) and people, let alone allowing enough space for pregnant women or children to exit. We don't seem to build underground parking or lift-based storage systems as they do abroad to cope with the demand for car parking spaces in flats or HMOs. Why not? Because it adds cost and time developers are not willing to invest.
• To reduce the ridiculous parking situations in which people feel the need to claim their space, we need to end the "I'm alright, Jack" culture we have and take sociatal responsibility. In a previous house, I cannot count the number of times I've been stopped from either entering or leaving my off-street parking area due to others blocking me or it in, abandoning their cars to collect their children from school. I felt I had to park inconveniently for others at times, just so I was able to drive to my appointments.

Since none of that will happen any time soon, we're in the mess we're in. Far more money needs to be pumped into proper development to change things for the better.

They are. My next door neighbour is a multi-generational house hold with three cars. There's room for 1.25 small cars outside the houses on our street or 1 big car. Next door to them a father and adult daughter with two cars.

All these autonomous cars that don't need a licensed driver? Well, both those youth that have and haven't taken a test, their parents, grandparents, children, etc.

I agree. I wasn't saying this is the future I think would be great. I was saying that the idea that autonomous cars as a ride share service is are just going to replace ownership is highly unlikely. (I also think that autonomous vehicles are likely to massively increase traffic on the roads, even if ride sharing proved cheap enough to become the default).

The additional costs with autonomous cars in a ride sharing scenario are all the support people they have to maintain to sort out problems when things go wrong with the service side of things. I've used the Waymo service a bit in the US and had to speak with support several times. That will get better, but it's not going to disappear. Also, if it's a service, there's continuous profit we will all have to cover. People also tend not to look after things they don't own in the same way and can't absorb the costs of cleaning and repairing by doing it themselves. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount in the way of savings. Zip car and its ilk have struggled to achieve profitability because maintenance of vehicles is expensive when you have to pay someone a wage to do all the noticing and checking and cleaning. No one's even tried to cover commuters because you need so many cars for the peak surges that will not get used at all during the rest of the day that it doesn't make economic sense. So it's easy for the service costs to be higher than potential savings on sharing.

As to what do you store in a box on the road - as standard at various points in the last few decades: car seats, buggies, sports equipment, coat and wellies, blanket, shopping bags, sunscreen, paracetamol, hobby equipment. And then when I drive somewhere for an appointment or a day trip, etc. Lunch, rain coat/umbrella just in case, shopping, change of clothes, etc. Storage box on the road can be very handy.

Yes traffic is a huge issue. I'm just saying ride share and autonomous vehicles won't really change that.

I think the same with those Luton vans

also I see cars parked totally on the pavements or on double yellow lines. When this become acceptable

This. "kids" on our road are having to stay at home well into their 20s and 30s post uni, because they cannot afford to move out so the average household with 2 grown up children has 3-4 cars here, and the driveways are barely wide enough for 2. I'm sure they don't want to still be living with mum and dad, and getting the evil eye daily from Janet at number 25, because they've dared to park near her house again, but that's the sad reality of Britain in 2026.

Our neighbours have four cars between two of them parked on the street. We'll it's actually three cars (none of which are 'special' in any way), and a hideous great campervan that rots away in the same spot for months on end. Generally there isn't a problem with the fact that it's a street of very old houses and most people need to park on the street; there's none of the silly reserving-spaces-with-cones nonsense you hear about or anything like that, most people are perfectly reasonable. Except my neighbours, who are dickheads.

You don’t need as many autonomous cars, on average a driver use their personal car 7 hours a week, so that’s 161 hours on average doing nothing.there won’t be the need for the amount of cars on the roads or the storage

the youths that haven’t taken a test - they won’t buy a car - they’ll ultimately just use an app to summons a car

the youths that have taken a test and have a licence won’t always buy a car, presently 20% don’t and if it’s cheaper to use another service which does the job, many more won’t - cost of living etc

parents own a car now, but will age and with new tests for retaining a licence coming in, may find they’re forced to stop

That's the marketing and tech frenzy bumf that AI's often regurgitate. But it fails to look at the reality of how cars are used. Someone might only use their car for 20 minute commute 10 times a week and the odd trip at the weekend. But if those 10 commutes happen when everyone else wants a car as well then ownership will be highly preferable to being late for work on a frequent basis or having to go in 40 minutes earlier to make sure you aren't late. That's the sort of convenience that pushes people to drive instead of taking the bus. And since car sharing isn't a big cost saver (see Zip Car's problems with achieving profitability, not to mention Uber and other such services, and they don't try to provide the cover needed for the commute crunch) it's unlikely to be particularly affordable as a main mode of transport, so not that appealing to younger people once they need to commute in a place without good public transport or where mum and dad won't drive them. Living in London and getting the tube and the odd Uber or short term rental works great (until you have kids) but elsewhere it's not nearly as feasible.

The other thing with the autonomous ride sharing ideal is that even if the affordability aspect did magically get solved and it came to pass, while it could lessen the parking issues, it will massively increase traffic on the roads because those cars will be driving around with no one in them looking for/going to their next fare.

Where I live there are lots of terraced housing with tiny front gardens but would be big enough to park a car on, roads are also very congested. I think the council should waive the dropped kerb fee or offer a way to get it done for a reduced cost for these properties