Driveway regularly used for turning - deterrent ideas?

[3girlsmama]

Looking for solutions/new ideas, please.
We live in a cul de sac near a park, and people increasingly drive in and, instead of reversing out, use our drive to turn. It irrationally irritates me & I'm convinced someone will tip our car one day. (DH is not that bothered, but I see it multiple times daily as I WFH).

It's awkward to get a gate due to the boundary layout next door & current hedge by our driveway bit.

I priced an automated bollard & it was €€€ over budget.

So, manual retractable bollard? Some another retractable thingy?! Anything new or tried and tested in a similar set-up?

There is a no throughway road sign at the entrance to the cul de sac, but just the image, not the words & I'm not convinced people know what it means... I'm thinking of buying a 'no through way' or 'dead end' sign first to see if that makes any difference.

Thanks!

This.

Your car could be bumped anywhere.

I’d much rather have people turn in my drive than have a sign up or leave my bin out.

I think @Justkeeppedaling has the best plan.

We have this problem as we live on a small private road off the main road. People frequently using it to turn. Of course it’s annoying; we have to ultimately pay for the additional wear and tear. Can’t have children playing out in case some idiot tears round the road not realising it’s a dead end. Noise at night etc.

We have put a sign up and actually I’d say it’s reduced traffic by about 80%. One Saturday I counted over 13 cars in 3 hours who had driven round and last weekend saw only 1.

If not a sign try chain or planters.

Does it matter? I panic when I realise I'm in a cul de sac and need to do a three point turn to get out.

reversing out again isn’t particularly safe for residents, especially if the vehicles are vans. Is it possible to turn round without using your drive? Are they using your actual driveway or the pavement in front of it?

Surely it’s not that hard to understand?

OP, i think the only thing you can do is put a chain across the bottom of the drive. I have a similar problem but with people using my drive as a short cut and it irritates the living shit out of me.

We get this. We have a big long drive off quite a narrow lane. We often get people turning in it and I’ve found people parked in it before. It’s quite long but it’s obviously a private driveway so I don’t know why they think it’s a public parking area.

I once came home to find a lady coming out of my driveway. I didn’t know her. I slowed down and indicated and she actually waved me past! I gave her a firm OUT gesture and she had the balls to look affronted. She was actually preventing me from driving into my own property! Cheeky twat.

I have attempted multiple diagrams...all failures 😅
I did consider the chain-fence idea, I saw tall metal decorative prong things that could be stuck into our grassy bit beside a large bush at one side of the drive to hold one end of the chain, but the other side is concrete (edge of drive) then neighbours grass. I'll see if there is some workaround.

There's kind of a slight lip on the drive bit, so people go slightly up when driving onto it, which is why I'm thinking a tip could happen. When I park closer to the house e, they just make more use of the drive space.. Maybe parking at the edge is worth a try. Parking across it would impede access for next door who are the last house in the cup de sac.

People could just reverse out but 99% of the time they don't. To be fair, there is an area that could assist turning but people usually use it as parking spaces.

We get this and have put up a sign, which seems to have reduced it. In our case, it was a problem because we have a gravel drive and the turning was creating a big dip in it that was hard to drive over and we had to get fixed.

I can't believe no one mentioned them before you 😆

And I probably wasn't clear; it's a housing estate road. Thanks for the solidarity from those who get it and are also annoyed by it 😅Again, multiple things make it annoying, like driving into the cul de sac, but someone is parked in front of your house. You have to reverse and let them out to go in again to access your drive.

Or when you're working from home and glance up at the third people carrier of the day driving into the driveway - driver locking eyes with you, it grates just minor irritations that build-up.

That's interesting that some have found the sign helped, thanks. I'll try it first because if prefer to know myself t

What's all this "&amp" about?

(MN Error pop up forced an early post above).

I prefer to know myself when I'm going into a cul de sac. If nothing else it will be handy for those who don't recognise the symbol. I'm reassured it's worked for some, thanks.

A chain link fence might be the next most straightforward option.

Gates or bollard final option, perhaps, as I like the safety idea of a bollard protecting a car on the drive from being stolen (thanks for the specific recommendation earlier). Although, I'm slightly worried I'd reverse into my own bollard!

We have had people damage our brick
gate posts and our cars on the drive by coming into our property and trying to turn round! We have a camera. It’s so hard to reverse out, they just open the gate and come in! The camera was useful for tracking down who hit and damaged the gatepost! Thames Water. We had to have part of it rebuilt. We have signs. Waste of time.

in your case, if you cannot get a gate, get a bollard. The retractable ones work. We have one on our parking bay elsewhere that sits on the ground but it’s not flimsy. It’s well made.

Stunt wheelbarrow?

Landmines?

I use the very end of driveways to turn if I need to. Even ones with signs.

Hi OP...

You could get a long planter on castors? Then it wouldn't take any lifting when you need to move it. We have them, like a movable fence as our house has covenants that won't allow a fence to be built.

This happens with our driveway. I couldn’t care less but DH gets really annoyed by it. We can’t do anything to prevent it though, because it’s a shared driveway - double width further up to allow both houses to park, but the entrance is narrow so anything we put there to prevent turning would also block access for neighbour. Neighbour’s house isn’t next to the driveway so they aren’t bothered by the turning.

I think I would put up (presuming there is a suitable tree/post/telgraph pole ) a sign saying CCTV warning sign.
That would be enough for me to think WTF what's that about and not drive in.

I would park on the drive but by the entrance. A diagram would help! I can't see why parking at the start of the drive rather than by your house wouldn't work but a diagram would help!

Make the entrance to your drive narrow with a large pot plant or similar. Just wide enough so you can get through, buy obviously much narrower than other roadways/driveway entrances. This will put 99% of people off using it as a turning point with no impact to you.

Don't put up a no turning sign. It will just earmark you as a mean and petty person!

I always look for a drive with a no turning sign to turn around in if I need to 😂 (yeah I'm petty too)

I have this problem. Narrow no through road. Many residents don't have parking and we have room for 3/4 cars. If no car on one side then vans will use drive to turn.

I don't mind it actually as it's a nightmare for them. That said, if I'm outside and they do it while I'm there without saying anything it gives me the rage as it feels rude then.

People also use drive as passing place. Again, no issue there, I do it on other drives further down if needed.

A gate or boulder or whatever will be a nuisance to you when you park your car, honestly if you can’t afford an automatic barrier forget it. However if you can afford a horizontal retracting barrier with a pedestrian walk through you get the best of both worlds for around £2k