AIBU to park my van on the road?

[Vantopark]

My family and I live in a quiet village. DH and I have 2 cars between us which we park on the driveway. DH also has a separate work van which can’t fit on the drive, so he parks it down the road. He can’t park it directly outside our house because the road is narrow at this point and it would cause an obstruction. So he parks it legally on the road a bit further down where the road widens. It is not parked directly outside anyone’s house as there are no houses there, but it can be seen from some people’s windows at a distance. The parking is not at a premium, and there is always plenty of space left for other people to park there should they wish.

The other villagers seem to hate this. Their objection is based purely on the fact that they don’t like the look of it (it is sign-written). Not that it is obstruction anyone or using up valuable parking spaces (because it isn’t). They don’t have any objection to the other cars that are parked there. We’ve been asked repeatedly to move it, but as we haven’t obliged they are starting to get more aggressive, stopping me in the street to call me a ‘fucking selfish bitch’ etc. There are things I can see out of my windows that I would rather weren’t there, but I think that’s just village life isn’t it? There isn’t anywhere else that we can park the van in the village, anywhere else would be even closer to people’s houses.

YABU: yes you are a selfish bitch and the van shouldn’t be there

YANBU: You are legally entitled to park the van there, crack on and the neighbours need to get over it.

What a load of nonsense.

OP as you say, the van isn't parked directly outside anyone's house and can only be seen from a distance. The villagers are being utterly unreasonable, completely unrealistic and have taken to bullying you over the sight of a van. Absolute arseholes to think they're owed a picture perfect view in the real world of working people. The van is his livelihood as he is self employed. How dare they?

we also don’t live in a white van man type of area so many were not pleased with it being on our street. I know this won’t be a popular opinion but it is a real one and hopefully help you be more aware why people are bothered.

Yep, as i said, simple snobbery!

What is a "white van man" type of area anyway? Both my builder BILs drive white vans, one lives in a £2.2m house in a private road in a posh part of Surrey, and the other lives in a £1.5m house in a very "naice" area on the Kent/Sussex border.

Weirdly, neither of them have had any grief about their vans, even when they are parked on the road for some reason.

sorry I should have said. The van would take up to much room so if we parked it on the drive we’d have to park both cars in the village

Unfortunately that is what I would be considering nonetheless. My concern would be that this situation may escalate and the van gets damaged.

Our neighbour has a signed van that is parked outside our houses on the road for similar reasons and I’ve honestly never given it any thought! We are in a village too. Some bloke down the road has a full on lorry parked in his drive, DD2 loves walking past!

Personally I like a signed van as I make a mental note when I need whatever service it is!

I’m also cracking up at the villagers chat too. In my head they are just furiously wandering around making their ‘hnnnngh’ noises disapprovingly.

We had this in our village, which wasn't designed for cars, never mind vans. It does effectively make the road single track and I can see why it was annoying. Is there anywhere else that you can park? We've moved since, but when we had no space to park at home we asked around. There was a village pub with a large, underused carpark and for a fairly small amount we were able to park there. There's a farm that also offers van parking for a small price. You might be able to find something like this.

Hm. A number of out local tradies used to "have to" park their vans in a weirdly prominent place where they were well lit and would attract attention evenings and weekends.
They gradually caused a fair number of problems because the numbers grew, even started including those tow along ad trailers and before you knew it the road looked like crap and the ones at the end were causing a hazard..
I'm not saying this is what your dh is doing, but I am saying I bet this looks like what he's doing. People will see it as the thin end of a wedge It spoils the visual amenities of an area and gets people backs up.

"we also don’t live in a white van man type of area so many were not pleased with it being on our street. I know this won’t be a popular opinion but it is a real one and hopefully help you be more aware why people are bothered."

Yes, that will help to you understand that some people are simply crashing snobs who like to separate themselves from the riff raff, such as plumbers or joiners who probably make more money than they do. Everywhere is a white van man type of area. It's a bloody good living for some of them and they can afford to live in naice places, ta very much.
Suck it up Hyacinths.

Can you stand in the spot the van normally parks and take one of them full circle pictures on your phone and have that printed on the cover!
The van won't be seen then. If they keep complaining they wil be complaining about the normal scenery.
As a bonus if anyone else parks so DP isn't fully lined up you can call them a selfish.

In all honesty I'm not sure what to suggest that would be sensible.
After being called a selfish bitch several times I'd be parking it like a twat in front of everyones that had insulted me on a rotary basis.

YANBU. Our camper van is parked legally on a road, not outside anyone’s house, plenty of other cars parked along there and two neighbours repeatedly leave notes telling us to move it

I'd be tempted to have the van's paintwork changed to something hugely garish with an irritating slogan such as "the only van in the village".

I hope you simply ignore them.

We do until one neighbour came over actually shouting at DP last week!

HGVs need what used to be called an O licence for overnight parking (might still be called that). So not relevant as it couldn’t happen.

What did he do?

Incredible how precious and entitled people can be. It offends them to see a van, seriously?

this ^

Why talk to you about it when it is your DP's decision where they parked 'their' van?

OP stated it was her husband, so I don't think you need to worry about misgendering "him", but I get your point.

why is it a safety issue to park a van on a drive?

There is a solution though, you park the van on the drive and the cars on the road. That's the neighbourly thing to do. Vans are ugly and should be on your property so that is you who is looking at them rather than your neighbours. You are being inconsiderate (no one should be swearing at you though that's unacceptable).

It's sad that they are so snobby that they don't want a van there just because of how it looks. Their stuck up attitudes are their problem not yours

I voted yabu because I hate all the large, ugly vans and bleedin' great motorhomes parked on residential roads.
There's always some reason why the owner couldn't possibly inconvenience themselves by moving the great ugly thing onto their own property or away from the houses.

People dislike work vans because they associate them with working class areas with a lot of tradespeople.

Not really the case today but work vans do tend to attract car crime as they tend to contain expensive equipment that thieves target. It used to be more common for people to put them inside garages, but newer houses often lack garages, or they've been converted, and vans have got larger and often don't fit older narrow garages.

Generally people expect work vans to be parked at commercial premises, not on residential roads.

That said - people's preferences are irrelevant, you are entitled to park the van where you are and your neighbours are being very unreasonable to be so rude to you over it.

If you're hoping to sell up and move soon, I would suck up parking the van on your drive and park the cars in the road, for the sake of neighbourly relations.

The lighter nights are coming soon and the reasons for not doing so diminish.