Be Excellent To Each Other

Again, the little side street that my house sits on the corner of is occupied by parked cars... including a large tipper truck/van thing that's been there for nearly a week.

There's only really space for four or so cars here, and they're typically occupied by myself, my neighbour's Freelander, his neighbour's Astra and a number of other cars which I see on a regular basis. Not today, of course, so I'm forced to drive further down this street and park there instead, on one of the patches of curb between the various driveways.

In one of the houses along this street lives a Victor Meldrew-alike who has confronted me before about doing this, demanding to know why I don't park my car on the street my house faces onto. This is impossible - I have double yellows on my doorstep, as it's a main road frequented by buses and such.

Dreading this as soon as I saw he was out and about in his front garden, and with a full load of groceries in each hand, I asked why I couldn't park where I was.

He said nothing was stopping me by law, but that people parking on this street were blocking it up and making it difficult for the people who live there, and why don't I build a hardstand at the back off my house like everyone else has, etc etc etc.

I told him that (together with the neighbour who owns the Freelander) that we're trying to ask the council to have that top of the road made residents parking only for us so we wouldn't have to park elsewhere, but for now I didn't have a choice. Though I am having a garage door fitted to the building at the rear of my house, my car won't be able to get in or out easily (though I didn't tell him this).

He said 'what if we were to put residents parking in here, then?' and I invited him to go right ahead if he wanted to, I didn't mind.

At this point he started back towards his car which he was cleaning (on the street, I might add, inconveniencing any of his hard-done-by neighbours who might have driven past far more so than my car which was up on the curb at a much wider part of the street further down) and I impassively returned his glare until he was gone.

Fuck off, you old cunt.

I should note that none of the other people on this side street that I've spoken to have made any objections to me when they have spoken to me as I get in and out of my car on the rare occasions (and it is rare that I have to park down there)... one asked for advice on buying a car like mine as he'd heard good reviews of them (and chuckled when I told him that when I'd seen him coming I thought he was going to have a go as well) and another simply asked that WHEN I parked on the curb, just to move it back a bit if I was across from his driveway so he could reverse out easily, cheers mate.

Having thought a bit about it, this is how I think I will handle it if it ever comes up again.

I'll explain that, as he admits, there is nothing stopping me legally from parking there. Therefore, I'd only stop if I WANTED TO. And I'll ask him if he really thinks that him accosting me on the street and being rude about it is going to make me want to agree with him.

Basically, I have no desire for a quarrel with this guy, but I am not going to be pushed around and want to make it clear that I am willing to reach some sort of amicable agreement if I don't get spoken to like I'm the asshole again.

I had this problem in the flat I used to live in, I had to use on-street parking as there was no other choice. Often I'd have to park in front of someone else's house.

Eventually people started trying to "protect" the space in front of their house by putting a traffic cone in the space (an illegally obtained traffic cone, I shouldn't wonder). This worked for everyone except me, who would simply pull up, move the traffic cone and then park there.

I received a few complaints. My answer each time was "Sorry, I'm entitled to park here just as much as you are.".

I have absolutely no sympathy for people who try and stop people parking on the road that they pay road tax for just as much as they do. The only exception is if the space is marked out with lines and is therefore a disabled parking space.

Fortunately I have my own space now so I don't need to worry about it, but it's one of my pet peeves how people have this sense of self-entitlement about that bit of road in front of their house that they don't actually own.

Not for the first time I'm glad I have a driveway

Similarly, I have double yellows in front of this house so I have to find somewhere nearby to park up, sometimes in front of someone's house. Now as I don't drive during the week, the car stays put a lot of the time so I try to keep the car out of people's way. However, one day I came home from work and found a post-it on my windscreen asking if I could park my car in front of my own house. Nice.

Put a postit on there saying that you would but for the double yellows.

He even acknowledges himself that he has no right to ask you not to park there and if the difficulties that this was causing for others where that bad, then other people would also be complaining.

We've all encountered cunts like this.

The best thing to do is to just carry on regardless. That way, you get a good laugh at his infantile behavior and he will probably end up having a stress induced stroke brought on by worrying about trivial nonsense.

Or let your tyres down / break your mirror and you'll never prove anything.

If he resorts to breaking the law and getting a criminal record over someone parking where they are legally entitled to, then thats the risk he takes.

I wouldn't let that possibility influence me.

I can't imagine this guy is the most popular guy in the neighbourhood and has no doubt pissed off other people as well. In which case, he would be taking a big risk by hoping to avoid the attention of everyone in the street whilst carrying out his petty vandalism.

Also, people only tend to resort to this when they think that you will do nothing back, so never give that impression.

Yup - hence I glared right into his eyes during at the end of all this. I really could do without this nonsense at the best of times, but least of all now when I'm hot, tired and trying to get £100 worth of shopping into the house.

I have mentioned him to others (the guy with the land rover, and the one who asked if Skodas were a good buy) and it's been so long that I can't remember the exact response, but both seemed at the very least aware of it all. *shrugs*

I'm trying not to stew on it, but the sheer twattyness of the whole thing (honestly, if the worst thing someone who lives around the corner from you ever does is park their car, you're lucky - I could be having noisy parties or dumping garbage or pissing on his mailbox) has gotten to me today. Grrr.

I think parking outside other people's houses is bogus.

Why's that?

There is limited parking where I work, so a lot of people park up on the side streets nearby.

One of my chums had a homeowner regularly accost and shout at her of an evening (him being a crotchety old man, her being a slight young blonde), claiming she was parking illegally outside his house. She parked legally on the road, not on any lines and causing no obstruction.

One night, he grabbed her by the shoulder and would not let her go. So her chum called the police, who turned up bloody quickly and told him in no uncertain terms that he had no legal right to complain as the road was clearly not restricted parking in any way, had no lines on it and her car was not causing an obstruction.

Also that if he grabbed anyone again and they heard about it, he'd be up on an assault charge rather than just the caution he got instead.

He doesn't complain anymore.

While I agree it must be the most nauseating pain in the arse to have someone park in front of your house, I agree that its just a public road you have no rights to. If you want guaranteed parking, buy or rent appropriately, really.

Especially if you, like this chap, have a driveway already.

Wow, do you work where I do? The same thing has happened to us at our office; about a year ago we had huge numbers of staff coming in (due to the Government massively fucking up the implementation of a particular EU payment policy so it was left to the bottom-of-the-heap civil servants to clear up their mess alongside an army of temps). Some of the (rich retiree) residents of the nearby estate went batshit insane about people having to park outside their houses; they'd accost young female members of staff at night, block the roads at 9pm (when the evening shift were leaving) so they had a captive audience to rant against, bend wing mirrors, pour cooking oil on windscreens, etc. They called the police on us at one point and the police were on their side! You'd think they'd have some sympathy for a bunch of public sector workers carrying out unpopular Government policies but apparently not.

These are probably the same people who park up on my street when they go shopping rather than pay the fees for the car park over the road.

My local station has an enormous, free park and ride lot.

Unfortunately, it's across the road (but, let's be honest, DIRECTLY across the road) from the station, and there's a crossing and everything specifically to let people get from the lot to the station.

In spite of this, people still park down the little lane immediately adjacent to the station instead, rather than walk the 50 yards to the lot. I almost bought the house that was on this lane until I realized that I'd gradually have the brickwork and stucco chipped off my house and wall by hamfisted commuters parking badly.

There's your answer then. Every time he winds you up, park across his driveway. Perfectly legal if he's not parked on it.

Craster, it's entirely illegal to do that.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTr ... /DG_069860

Scroll to Section 243. You cannot park in front of an entrance to a property. Otherwise the owner can ring one of those no fee removal firms, and you'd then be liable for towing costs.

Huh. I'm sure that never used to be the case. Hang on - my front gate is the entrance to my property. Does that mean people can't park in front of it (I have no drive)?

The Highway Code says "DO NOT" rather than "MUST NOT" so it's not actually an offence, as far as I know.

However, pretty much EVERYONE will frown upon it and if you do get towed away you will have no legal recourse, it's just not done.

And as far as I'm aware, "entrance to a property" is defined as a dropped-kerb.

I'm certain it never used to be the case though. I was sure that it was totally fine (although obviously cunty) as long as you didn't block anyone who was on the drive at the time from leaving.

The problem that would occur would be when they wanted to gain access, and would be prevented whilst idling out on the highway, causing further obstruction.

My understanding is that you had no legal right to access to your driveway, but you did have legal right of access to the public highway.

Again, I appear to be wrong, and have no idea whether I was ever right.

If his driveway has a dropped kerb in front of it then I'm pretty sure you could end up with a ticket slapped on your windscreen for blocking it.

It seems like it's one of those things that you shouldn't do, but there's no actual law against it, other than moral code?

Needless to say, if someone parked across my drive and didn't move when asked, or when asked by the police, I'd smash the window to gain access and then release the handbrake, and roll it down the road a bit.

We have someone who parks on our front, which is annoying as their own front is free, but as long as they don't block our drive there's nothing we can really do about it.

I do think that cars bring out the worst in people.

I used to have the most adorable neighbour- he was a little old man who would pass me Wagon Wheels over the fence every time he saw me out in the garden.

Although I acknowledge your (not-so) sly dig at car drivers, I do happen to agree. When we bump into people in the street, each person does a little dance and says sorry. When it happens in cars we usually shout at each other.

We can queue for ages, but get into a car and it's all beeping of horns and swapping lanes to get five yards further down the road.

Obviously I'm generalising, but I don't think the truth is far from that.

It wasn't meant to be a dig at car drivers at all. Just an observation that when cars are involved, or, for that matter, bikes, people get more aggressive and things, as you said in my quote up there.

Going by this it seems that the law has changed and it is illegal to park on a dropped kerb.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topi ... 168904&i=0

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tpm/tma ... npavements

Although it depends if it's in a Special Enforcement Area, or it might depend on the local council.

It's not very clear

A friend of mine said that someone kept on parking outside his house, in front of the driveway. He said it was very annoying, but not quite as annoying as when the person started actually parking IN his driveway.

What kind of maniac does that?

Speaking of cars, Top Gear is back and nobody told me.

iPlayer

Also, is this site being really temperamental, or is just my net being shit?

Fine for me today.

I'd have blocked them in. I've done it before when people have parked in my designated space back when we lived in a flat.

Then I don't answer the doorbell for a good 10-15 mins when they're constantly ringing it.

but hey, free bikkie.

Good point. The man wanted to hurt my bottom from the inside, but the sweets were lovely.

When a car ploughed into mine and four others outside my house, who swept up and took to the dump ALL the detritus scattered outside my house (double fronted) and a good way down the road each side? The council? The other car owners? The police? The peple who caused the crash? The people who park outside my house to drop their kids off at school, or the ones who use the park opposite?

Nah, 'twas me, and as I'm the only person who can be arsed to make the road so that it is possible to park on it without shredding one's tires, I'll feel a hint of entitlement, if it's all the same to you. A hint mind, not a god-given right, i.e. three straight days of no space out front and I might grumble about putting all the wreckage back!

LOVE moving those folk's cones, though. Love it