Someone blocks your driveway. What do?
Discussion
redrook said:
Birdster said:
Is parking on the start of the dropped kerb allowed?
I've always avoided it when parking elsewhere but seem to have a few people doing it to us lately and when politely challenged on it they just say well you can still get out. I used to have my old car parked between mine and the neighbours drive and now the commuters are coming in and squeezing into a space big enough for a Ka/Fiesta.
No, that is not allowed, and actually can be dealt with by the police - and yes, they actually will.I've always avoided it when parking elsewhere but seem to have a few people doing it to us lately and when politely challenged on it they just say well you can still get out. I used to have my old car parked between mine and the neighbours drive and now the commuters are coming in and squeezing into a space big enough for a Ka/Fiesta.
CitTone said:
as I had no idea who had left this merry missive, I sent a Christmas Card to the closest address, with a picture of the street's parking restriction sign showing the "Weekdays only" limitation.
I guessed that, if it wasn't that resident, they'd probably know to whom it should be forwarded
That made me laugh.I guessed that, if it wasn't that resident, they'd probably know to whom it should be forwarded
saaby93 said:
KTF said:
On a similar theme, we have the natives who feel the need to reserve the space outside their house as its 'their' space of course.
Note also the parking fail by the Jazz.
Whats worse bagging a space by parking a car or bagging one by using a cone?Note also the parking fail by the Jazz.
A. Complaining loudly and proudly about not being able to park outside somebody else's house with your second car/work van, (because you've used up all the space outside your own house already).
(Assuming, I have understood the OP correctly, that's the original scenario as it reads in the first post.
)B. Complaining about other people parking outside your house and then parking in a disabled or drop off bay, because - I'll only be a minute.
C. Complaining about other people parking outside your house and then Dumping your car on yellow lines or someone's driveway outside a school, because - I'm in a hurry and want that 10min chat with other parents.
Edited by Hol on Monday 26th June 17:16
Foxhall said:
If you have a vehicle on the driveway it is an offence under law to block access and the police can and should be involved
If the drive is blocked when there is no vehicle present, towing is the safest option.
Driveway empty or not, as far as I'm concerned you DON'T block it OR park on it.If the drive is blocked when there is no vehicle present, towing is the safest option.
I live in a terrace of 4 private houses, in a cul-de-sac, all have driveways, leading to integral garages built under the individual houses.
Mine and my neighbour to my right have long driveways, capable of taking at least 3 medium to small cars, the other 2 have spaces for 1 car each in addition to their garage.
There is no dropped kerb, the driveways are level with the road.
I live some 80 metres from the Thames, very close to Tower Bridge, and a few years back, the river was full of "big ships" for a sailing race, so people were coming from all over to admire the ships.
Naturally there were a few more cars parking in the area for this, but you could still get in and out reasonably easily.
One day, being a 'black cab' driver, I got a job close to home and decided to stop for coffee.
As I approached my house, I saw a VW Passat parked on the drive, its rear bumper maybe 40cm from my garage door.
Thinking that it must belong to a friend of my wife, I parked in front of it, went in, and asked her.
She said that 2 guys put it there and were getting out, when she asked them to leave, as it was our private property, they'd said that they just wanted to look at the ships, she'd insisted, and they said that they'd leave when they were ready.
At this, the red mist started to descend across my eyes, but I thought, I'm going back to work, I'll try it legally first.
I phoned the local cops, who weren't too keen, until I told them that a breach of the peace was very likely if they didn't come and mediate.
When they arrived, they ran the plate, they wouldn't tell me, but I heard one say to his pal, "registered to an address in Nottinghamshire."
I said, "How about I pull it out with a tow rope?" They said that if I damaged it, the owner could take me to court, the best thing to do would be to wait until they returned and took it away.
I agreed, and they left.
I called a friend who had a breakers yard in Deptford, and he agreed to lend me a battered Transit van, and an ancient Land Rover, the solid metal kind.
He and a friend brought them round, and I took them back in my taxi.
I parked the Transit on my neighbour's drive, (she was in Canada), about 50 cms from the side of the VW, and backed the Land Rover up, to about 25 cms from the VWs front bumper, so there was a brick wall one side of the VW, the Transit on the other side, and the Land Rover in front of it.
I then decided not to go back to work, and parked my taxi a few streets away.
About an hour later, the guys knocked on the door.
I had left my kid's baseball bat in clear view by the inside of the door, with absolutely no intention of using it, or threatening to.
When they asked to be let out, I just said, "Yeah, when I'm ready", and closed the door, 20 minutes later, the same 2 cops turned up, summoned by the 2 guys, they asked me to see reason, I said, "I don't think so", they just shrugged at the guys with the VW, and drove away.
I let them stew for about an hour, then moved the Land Rover.
Edited by Frank7 on Monday 26th June 17:47
A friend had a very similar incident as yours above Frank.
She lives close to a football stadium and came home to find a car in her driveway with the visiting teams flags on the windows. She left her car on a neighbours drive (with permission), locked her gates and waited. When the owners arrived back she told them they couldn't have it back unless they paid her £100. They wouldn't and called the police who came about an hour later. When they arrived they told the owner to pay the money and not be such a tool in future. She is still very proud of herself.
She lives close to a football stadium and came home to find a car in her driveway with the visiting teams flags on the windows. She left her car on a neighbours drive (with permission), locked her gates and waited. When the owners arrived back she told them they couldn't have it back unless they paid her £100. They wouldn't and called the police who came about an hour later. When they arrived they told the owner to pay the money and not be such a tool in future. She is still very proud of herself.
KTF said:
On a similar theme, we have the natives who feel the need to reserve the space outside their house as its 'their' space of course.
Note also the parking fail by the Jazz.
Nice drop kerb, why waste money on a council approved contractor when you can do it yourself with a hammer & chisel!Note also the parking fail by the Jazz.
Frank7 said:
Driveway empty or not, as far as I'm concerned you DON'T block it OR park on it.
I live in a terrace of 4 private houses, in a cul-de-sac, all have driveways, leading to integral garages built under the individual houses.
Mine and my neighbour to my right have long driveways, capable of taking at least 3 medium to small cars, the other 2 have spaces for 1 car each in addition to their garage.
There is no dropped kerb, the driveways are level with the road.
I live some 80 metres from the Thames, very close to Tower Bridge, and a few years back, the river was full of "big ships" for a sailing race, so people were coming from all over to admire the ships.
Naturally there were a few more cars parking in the area for this, but you could still get in and out reasonably easily.
One day, being a 'black cab' driver, I got a job close to home and decided to stop for coffee.
As I approached my house, I saw a VW Passat parked on the drive, its rear bumper maybe 40cm from my garage door.
Thinking that it must belong to a friend of my wife, I parked in front of it, went in, and asked her.
She said that 2 guys put it there and were getting out, when she asked them to leave, as it was our private property, they'd said that they just wanted to look at the ships, she'd insisted, and they said that they'd leave when they were ready.
At this, the red mist started to descend across my eyes, but I thought, I'm going back to work, I'll try it legally first.
I phoned the local cops, who weren't too keen, until I told them that a breach of the peace was very likely if they didn't come and mediate.
When they arrived, they ran the plate, they wouldn't tell me, but I heard one say to his pal, "registered to an address in Nottinghamshire."
I said, "How about I pull it out with a tow rope?" They said that if I damaged it, the owner could take me to court, the best thing to do would be to wait until they returned and took it away.
I agreed, and they left.
I called a friend who had a breakers yard in Deptford, and he agreed to lend me a battered Transit van, and an ancient Land Rover, the solid metal kind.
He and a friend brought them round, and I took them back in my taxi.
I parked the Transit on my neighbour's drive, (she was in Canada), about 50 cms from the side of the VW, and backed the Land Rover up, to about 25 cms from the VWs front bumper, so there was a brick wall one side of the VW, the Transit on the other side, and the Land Rover in front of it.
I then decided not to go back to work, and parked my taxi a few streets away.
About an hour later, the guys knocked on the door.
I had left my kid's baseball bat in clear view by the inside of the door, with absolutely no intention of using it, or threatening to.
When they asked to be let out, I just said, "Yeah, when I'm ready", and closed the door, 20 minutes later, the same 2 cops turned up, summoned by the 2 guys, they asked me to see reason, I said, "I don't think so", they just shrugged at the guys with the VW, and drove away.
I let them stew for about an hour, then moved the Land Rover.
Brilliant stuff! Sound like a right pair of tI live in a terrace of 4 private houses, in a cul-de-sac, all have driveways, leading to integral garages built under the individual houses.
Mine and my neighbour to my right have long driveways, capable of taking at least 3 medium to small cars, the other 2 have spaces for 1 car each in addition to their garage.
There is no dropped kerb, the driveways are level with the road.
I live some 80 metres from the Thames, very close to Tower Bridge, and a few years back, the river was full of "big ships" for a sailing race, so people were coming from all over to admire the ships.
Naturally there were a few more cars parking in the area for this, but you could still get in and out reasonably easily.
One day, being a 'black cab' driver, I got a job close to home and decided to stop for coffee.
As I approached my house, I saw a VW Passat parked on the drive, its rear bumper maybe 40cm from my garage door.
Thinking that it must belong to a friend of my wife, I parked in front of it, went in, and asked her.
She said that 2 guys put it there and were getting out, when she asked them to leave, as it was our private property, they'd said that they just wanted to look at the ships, she'd insisted, and they said that they'd leave when they were ready.
At this, the red mist started to descend across my eyes, but I thought, I'm going back to work, I'll try it legally first.
I phoned the local cops, who weren't too keen, until I told them that a breach of the peace was very likely if they didn't come and mediate.
When they arrived, they ran the plate, they wouldn't tell me, but I heard one say to his pal, "registered to an address in Nottinghamshire."
I said, "How about I pull it out with a tow rope?" They said that if I damaged it, the owner could take me to court, the best thing to do would be to wait until they returned and took it away.
I agreed, and they left.
I called a friend who had a breakers yard in Deptford, and he agreed to lend me a battered Transit van, and an ancient Land Rover, the solid metal kind.
He and a friend brought them round, and I took them back in my taxi.
I parked the Transit on my neighbour's drive, (she was in Canada), about 50 cms from the side of the VW, and backed the Land Rover up, to about 25 cms from the VWs front bumper, so there was a brick wall one side of the VW, the Transit on the other side, and the Land Rover in front of it.
I then decided not to go back to work, and parked my taxi a few streets away.
About an hour later, the guys knocked on the door.
I had left my kid's baseball bat in clear view by the inside of the door, with absolutely no intention of using it, or threatening to.
When they asked to be let out, I just said, "Yeah, when I'm ready", and closed the door, 20 minutes later, the same 2 cops turned up, summoned by the 2 guys, they asked me to see reason, I said, "I don't think so", they just shrugged at the guys with the VW, and drove away.
I let them stew for about an hour, then moved the Land Rover.
ts, no sympathy for them whatsoever!Reminds me of when I went to drop off my girlfriend's grandad at her parents' place one evening. They live near a train station so the road gets very busy with commuters parking all over the place. Turned up to find a car parked in their drive. There is only room for one car on the drive and her grandad was unable to walk long distances. The only spaces were a long way down the road.
It turned out that nobody knew who owned the car and it had been there since early that morning. In the end I had to stop in the middle of the road outside the house so he could get out, blocking two or three very patient drivers for a minute or so as he got out the car.
Once I'd parked way down the next road, I walked up to the house and decided to try all the doors on the Astra abandoned in the driveway. All the doors were locked, but the boot wasn't. I removed the parcel shelf, folded down the seats and popped open the bonnet.
My girlfriend's dad had his knackered old Rover 75 sat in the garage. It had been there for months due to head gasket failure (he's finally got rid of it now).
We swapped the Astra's very new looking battery for the Rover's dead one, and then went inside to watch the footie.
At half time we could hear an engine turning over very slowly followed by "click click click..." (surprised the battery had any life in it at all to be fair). A bit of car door-slamming later, the doorbell goes. Her dad answers the door with all of us watching from the front room, and a smartly dressed man is stood on the doorstep. Before he could say anything, her dad asks "Is that your car?". The man nods, which results in being told in no uncertain terms to "f
k OFF!" followed by having the door slammed in his face.About half an hour later the AA turned up to jump start the car. He hasn't parked on their driveway since.
In answer to the OP's question, my long term solution to this problem was to move house, with 'no parking hassles' right at the top of the new house wishlist.
Just reading threads like this takes me back to pre 2015, and all that house moving stress is forgotten compared to the bliss of living somewhere no one has ever parked in, or across my drive.
Just reading threads like this takes me back to pre 2015, and all that house moving stress is forgotten compared to the bliss of living somewhere no one has ever parked in, or across my drive.
KTF said:
On a similar theme, we have the natives who feel the need to reserve the space outside their house as its 'their' space of course.
Note also the parking fail by the Jazz.
Step 1 : drill 4 x 10mm holes through each cone base and into tarmac.Note also the parking fail by the Jazz.
Step 2 : resin in 4 x M10 x 200 bolts.
Step 3 : youtube.
We used to have the problem of people parking on our driveway at our old house.
The driveway was wide enough for two cars side by side leaving enough room to get in and out of both without a struggle.
They would park right in the middle of the drive or sometimes have the car half on the drive and half in the road.
The thing that got us was that if someone parked on the drive they parked in the middle so they were the only ones who could park there.
Parking was a nightmare with far more houses without driveways than with driveways and there was always more cars than places to park.
If some of them had asked nicely it wouldn't have been a issue as we only had one car back then.
Luckily people only park over our driveway very rarely but the combination of a narrow driveway entrance and narrow road does cause the problem of not being able to get out due to people parking opposite our driveway.
Hopefully we solved that problem a while back by making the driveway entrance wider.
Sadly some people never even think about who they are blocking in when they park their cars.
Some we have approached over the years both at our current house and the old house invariably took speaking to them about parking as a personal attack & the responses were generally aggressive with one or two getting physical resulting in the Police being called.
The driveway was wide enough for two cars side by side leaving enough room to get in and out of both without a struggle.
They would park right in the middle of the drive or sometimes have the car half on the drive and half in the road.
The thing that got us was that if someone parked on the drive they parked in the middle so they were the only ones who could park there.
Parking was a nightmare with far more houses without driveways than with driveways and there was always more cars than places to park.
If some of them had asked nicely it wouldn't have been a issue as we only had one car back then.
Luckily people only park over our driveway very rarely but the combination of a narrow driveway entrance and narrow road does cause the problem of not being able to get out due to people parking opposite our driveway.
Hopefully we solved that problem a while back by making the driveway entrance wider.
Sadly some people never even think about who they are blocking in when they park their cars.
Some we have approached over the years both at our current house and the old house invariably took speaking to them about parking as a personal attack & the responses were generally aggressive with one or two getting physical resulting in the Police being called.
saaby93 said:
Who me said:
Forget frozen sausages. If you're in no hurry, the old potatoes in the exhaust works well. But the best cure is good Samaritans. When my car was off road a year or so ago, I had one little obnoxious yoink decide it was his/his GFs parking space. I'd asked him/her to park elsewhere as my daughter needed this space ( complete with dropped kerb) to get close to ours as GS had health problems. All I got was a car parked over the drive and fingers rampant. Next morning, her car had modified tyres. No comeback, as GS is an honorary member of a biker group.
Certainly no police involvement asking if I'd seen anything- yoink was a grower dealer.
sausages aside - can someone translate thisCertainly no police involvement asking if I'd seen anything- yoink was a grower dealer.
If time is something that is of no concern ,then modifying the rear exhaust with the addition of a potato is worth trying. ( In vernacular- push a potato up the end of the exhaust)
But as mentioned, I had this problem, when some little person of few years ,similar mentality & IQ decided that the space outside mine( complete with dropped kerb ) was somewhere he & his girlfriend ( GF) could use with impunity. I had asked him to respect the dropped kerb as my grandson ( GS)has health problems. ( both physical and mental) . Response was a hand salute with two fingers, and my dropped kerb blocked by one of these cars.
Some person of similar feelings toward this person had obviously heard the problem, as next morning- the offending vehicle had flat ( =modified ) tyres.
Person parking ( him of low mentalty & IQ) did not want to involve police ,as he knew that I knew he was a drug dealer and grower.
Good enough, or as you apparently drive a Saab- shall I ask Helga from Sweden to translate further
I've had this problem before when I spoke to the law they advised saying that it is illegal for someone to block your drive when parked on it but not when your not there so I just parked nearby and jacked up the car on the offside and left it sitting on a railway sleeper and slapped it with grease and let the tyres down some nob knocked and asked if I was responsible I replied it will cost £500 to get it removed and left it at that never had issues again
Ben Chod said:
So I came home the other night, somewhere between 12 and 2 am to find this van blocking my driveway. Didn't know who it belonged to so I decided to tow it out of the way.
Earlier on I was in my garage and saw the van pull up. Spoke to the guy in it, saying 'excuse me mate do you mind not blocking my driveway in future.'
Which was then met with hostility. 'I wasn't parked there... Talk to me politely... Clearly you've got nothing better to do... Next time call the council... I Don't care... Blah blah blah'.
I'll be honest here, that does sound a bit snappy but not unreasonable at the end of the day. Given his reaction of; "Talk to me politely", maybe it did come across as a bit abrupt. If it was me, i'd find the owner a second time and try a softer approach. Things can come across wrong or misconstrued at times. If that doesn't work, then go from there.Earlier on I was in my garage and saw the van pull up. Spoke to the guy in it, saying 'excuse me mate do you mind not blocking my driveway in future.'
Which was then met with hostility. 'I wasn't parked there... Talk to me politely... Clearly you've got nothing better to do... Next time call the council... I Don't care... Blah blah blah'.
The issue with these kind of disputes is the unwillingness of the powers-that-be that should get involved, as others have previously stated. By the time something gets arranged, the offender has probably already buggered off. This kind of thing becomes worse when it's a repeat offender. i.e. a neighbour but it's still very annoying all the same.
I have previously lived in a flat where people would put cones out to reserve their own spaces outside of their houses. I even made a post about it on here. More recently, outside of my girlfriend's mum a dad's house, a grumpy old lady in the house opposite decided to make her own "No Parking" signs outside her place and told me the council put them there.
Edited by culpz on Tuesday 27th June 10:08
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