AIBU for pulling into a private drive after my car failed?

[1hatchling1fledgling]

WWYD? AIBU. In a big traffic jam on an urban dual carriageway for ages. Suddenly my entire dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree, lose power steering, brakes etc. hazards on and get my car somehow into the left hand lane and then into the huge drive of a large house. Knock and explain. Call RAC who have arrived when the husband gets home. I instantly apologise and he says “yes my wife told me that you had abandoned your car in my drive” (I’d waited in the car). “Get it moved now”. So should I have (a) blocked one lane of the road in a heatwave, (b) blocked the pavement and cycleway or (c) done what I did. Fault transpired to be alternator malfunction at low speeds. I was quite upset, but the professional and kind RAC operative was brilliant. He needed to follow me home since I had his battery. So I gave him a bottle of lemonade and a couple of ice lollies, as wearing those fluorescents on a hot day he was really suffering with the heat. Note driveway/front garden large enough to accommodate 8 cars comfortably

I once had to 'drive' my car which had a buggered clutch, all through a busy city centre to my house at the other side,by basically stalling it so that it jumped forward a couple of feet, all the way from one side of the city to the other. I had rang my breakdown company who had said they weren't going to come out without a huge deposit becuase 'I had used them too many times that year' (it later transpired, when I was thinking straight, that I hadn't used them that year at all, they'd made a mistake!). I can't remember if someone called the police, or they were just there and stopped me randomly but when I explained the situation they just said 'Just keep your hazards on and be careful'. It was awful but sometimes cars do stupid things that aren't predictable.

It really is true. It’s classed as civil trespass, the police are not interested nor can do anything. You can’t tow it away. If it parks over your driveway blocking you in, you still can’t tow it away.

This is hilarious

Apologies my finger slipped and I pressed the wrong button by mistake , I meant to press you are not being unreasonable.

That's not what I was advised, but I also wasn't in the UK.

I am usually quite taken aback by the low distress tolerance of many people who consider themselves to be functional adults but being so pathetic that someone's car breaking down on your gigantic driveway sends you into a furious tailspin is really something. And trust me, I'm the first to say that people who park where they shouldn't for their precious school run need slapping.

In the UK you can’t do that, more’s the pity.

We live on a fairly busy road and by the coast, one day a guy towing a speedboat broke down in front of our house, we went out to help and let him leave the boat in our garden for two weeks whilst he got his car repaired. I'm all for helping people when they are in a pickle.

What's wrong with some people? The guy was a knob head, sorry you had to deal with that on top.of the stress of breaking down.

10 cars could fit onto my drive, we have a lot of outside space. We also heavily compromised on the doer-upper shithole of a house for the outside space 🤣.

Op, you'd have been welcome on my drive and if my DH said something like that to you, he'd be getting a flea in his ear.

Yes, much better to have people in wheelchairs unable to get past, buggies pushed into the road to get past, ambulances stuck in even worse traffic as someone codes in the back than one family experience a minor inconvenience of having theirdriveway used to Park a car by a lone woman in the middle of the day. How DARE op try not to cause a huge inconvenience to hundreds of people over a minor one to one household

I can't understand the YABU votes either. The guy sounds like he'd had a human kindness bypass. I'd like to think most people would want to help in a situation like this where no real inconvenience was being caused. I certainly would.

Thanks everyone who provided a valid perspective. Hopefully it will never happen again, but it was so scary. Like a nightmare where you are driving your car but can’t steer it and lights are showing you have no brakes. I’m sorry that I upset that guy so much though I did my best to be respectful. The og RAC estimate was that they would be there by midnight. It’s darkly humourous to think of what he would have made of me camping outside his house 15m from his front door. Thank goodness the eventual wait was only one hour! Hopefully it’s only the alternator. Anything more and I’ll be selling body parts on the body parts for sale thread to raise the necessary funds.

Hope the bill's not too grim, OP. I can well imagine how frightening this must have been.

YANBU

“Yes my wife told me that you had abandoned your car in my drive. Get it moved now”.

Three possible scenarios:

• Utterly rude a-hole (“my drive” - doesn’t equally belong to his wife then?)
• Had a v bad day
• Local gangster

Whichever, must’ve been stressful enough to break down and have to sit on someone’s frontage, but more so when they made you feel so unwelcome.

It is. Same thing happened to us with the alternator, only on a fast dual carriageway with no hard shoulder. Minus 3 on a February night, no lights, not even hazards, no heating… too cold to get out of the car, but terrified we’d be hit up the back while we stayed in it. Put our seatbelts on and the handbrake off, and hoped for the best! No WiFi in the middle of practically nowhere - so What Three Words was misdirecting. When the AA guy finally found us, he said you should always call the police if you’re in a dangerous situation.

FWIW, I think you did the right thing - in another incident DH classic car once blew the top hose on Clapham Common in Friday night rush hour. We had to wait half an hour for it to cool down before we could mend it. People were Not Happy with the resultant traffic.

(Also, Sorry, can’t remember how much the alternator cost)

The problem is you don't know what needs might be present in the house you are parking in (which is pretty moot point if the driveway is more than one vehicle wide, which mine isn't).

I've broken down years ago when 9 months pregnant, on a main road in rush hour. Pulled over to the shoulder till we could get a tow. Embarrassing, yes. Slowed the traffic, yes. But we've been on the other end of that and it happens.

I'd probs have just parked on the pavement tbh. It was kinda an emergency so doubt you could get in too much trouble if the alternative was parking on a live road.

Some people are overly paranoid about being scammed etc too. A lot of scams start with a lone woman in distress because it's less intimidating than a couple of random big blokes (who often turn up at a later point once the scout has confirmed the coast is clear).

You should have blocked a lane. That's where cars belong. It's an utter pain when one breaks down but they don't get to get in everyone else's way just so the rest of the car drivers aren't inconvenienced.

Funny, I grew up in a vicarage (with a drive) and was just thinking what an absolute non-event this would have been for my parents, who would have offered the OP sustenance while she waited (they had people knocking on the door for a cup of tea and a sandwich several times a week - ETA this was an inner city vicarage not a village one). If I had a drive I would do the same.

OP, that guy was a bellend.

YABU to not include a diagram

< passes out at the prospect of a mumsnetter offering up a toilet >

I’ll come clean and say that parking on the pavement is a pet peeve of mine, and I would have completely blocked it. This is a main arterial route and a fave with radio traffic announcers!

Fair enough

No you absolutely shouldn't have pulled into a stranger drive with a broken down car. It just simply isn't done. I've got a neighbour who had to put up huge gates to stop folk reversing into her drive. And they cost a fortune.