Share your tales of parking madness

I suppose this tale is parking madness.
The bloke opposite our shop does not meet the requirements of having a disabled badge. He runs, climbs ladders and carries heavy loads.
So I phoned the relevant authorities to report him obviously using someone else’s badge.
The man on the phone said they couldn’t take action as his disability may not be visible. Such as I asked? He might be blind was their answer.I gave up at that point.

No, in my case, there’s clearly a garage with a roller door, and one space outside, plus one adjacent space. And opposite is a small private car park with key operated barrier. (edit: and that adjacent space has a very clear no parking sign indicating that illegal parkers will be towed – although that may not be legal here?)

that’s in a one way street, with metered parking both sides, with obvious gaps where entrances to private parking are located.

they are not confused whatsoever. they do it because they are fat lazy freeloaders.

I live opposite a school, its busy for 10 minutes with drop offs, most people are fine. However there was a couple of incidents with a certain individual once which I personally got ‘involved’ with, which resulted in an undercover police car watching over the school run for a few days.

I’ve also had to go out when folk park opposite with radio or phone speakers on really loud whilst waiting for children doing after school classes, like you cant hear yourself eating your tea loud. Cars generally have private plates trying to make an actual word.

Lovely bloke further up was threatened by a dad after asking a weekend footballing boy to not knock the mud off his shoes all over the blokes drive.

Same lovely bloke further up was threatened by another football dad after asking him to not rip the mesh fence down to avoid walking 30 m round to a gate.

Football moms and dads often totally bloke the entrance to a bridleway I ride to the local trail on, my lock on ends have a few different colours of paint on them.

I cannot fathom parking across a drive. It does not compute. Road outside a house fair game but across a drive?? It’s a drive! What’s going through people’s heads when they park over a drive?

Just to play devil’s advocate. As has been pointed out several times on this thread, you don’t have exclusive use of the road outside your house. Why does adding a dropped kerb (or sometimes just knocking down your front wall) suddenly change that? You want to use that bit of road to access your drive, they want to park on it. Drives are often one space so basically you lose one public space to gain one private space or vice versa if someone parks across it.

It’s a pretty simple offence of causing an obstruction. Whether or not the presence of a dropped kerb is necessary is another matter.

Football moms and dads often totally bloke the entrance to a bridleway

Example of a typo that should be a real verb, especially when it comes to football dads 🙂

It’s a pretty simple offence of causing an obstruction.

My understanding was that it was an offence to block access to the highway, so only an offence if there is a car in the drive. Might be one of those internet myths though. Just to add, I wouldn’t do it.

Just had a quick look up and the highway code rule 243 says
DO NOT stop or park:
…
in front of an entrance to a property
Which is an advisory rather than a ‘must not’

Football moms and dads often totally bloke the entrance to a bridleway
Example of a typo that should be a real verb, especially when it comes to football dads

I also use the BW to walk my dog on so will often be carrying bags of dog shit, a certain thought has often crossed my mind…

Why does adding a dropped kerb (or sometimes just knocking down your front wall) suddenly change that?

dunno about there, but a dropped kerb here (or even one that’s not physically dropped but defined and indicated as an access) is explicitly granted as a right of passage and right of access, in the paperwork filed with the local land registry, so does therefore have an explicit change in the legal definition of that bit of road.
the bit outside your house that’s not the drive / dropped kerb is free for all (or other status as defined and indicated by the relevant authority)

dropped kerb

Try getting one put in (legally), and you’ll find out why it’s different.

There’s a church near my Mum that has a fair bit of crazy parking going on, obviously Catholic guilt syndrome doesn’t kick in when you’re in a car. Good Christians – bad parkers.

Our house backs on to a primary school, with all the usual parking carnage outside. Our street is approximately 200 yards to the school and always has plenty of space to park at nine and three o clock, I have never ever seen a single parent park up and drop a kid off or do the two minute walk to the school with their kids, they all, without exception, park as close as humanly possible to the entrance.

Serves the bourgeois scum right for stealing the land from the oppressed masses

That’s the people who steal public space by parking on the road, isn’t it?

Enjoy!
😕

I live opposite a school, its busy for 10 minutes with drop offs, most people are fine. However there was a couple of incidents

I do drop off once a week – several parents seem to think that the zigzags by the zebra crossing aren’t there for pedestrian safety, rather the place exclusively reserved for them to park.

I have now started photographing the incidents and sending them to the head who is compiling them with other parents now doing the same and sending to the police.

Enjoy!

Good grief.

I have to congratulate our local pub. It’s got a pretty decent sized carpark and they arranged with the nearby school to allow the parents to park there on the dropoff/pickup times rather than trying to shoehorn everyone into the madness of the school gates.

That video was truely special

several parents seem to think that the zigzags by the zebra crossing aren’t there for pedestrian safety, rather the place exclusively reserved for them to park.

They’re diagonal parking bays aren’t they? 😉

I have to congratulate our local pub. It’s got a pretty decent sized carpark and they arranged with the nearby school to allow the parents to park there on the dropoff/pickup times rather than trying to shoehorn everyone into the madness of the school gates.

Exactly the same situation at my youngest’s school, but no one uses it as it would require them to walk a couple of hundred yards to the school and back so everyone still tries to park as near as physically possible to the gates.

The bloke opposite our shop does not meet the requirements of having a disabled badge. He runs, climbs ladders and carries heavy loads.
So I phoned the relevant authorities to report him obviously using someone else’s badge.

That’s hardly a comprehensive understanding of the badge scheme requirements you’ve demonstrated there, and as the person you spoke to rightly said (albeit using an unfortunate example) doesn’t prove that they are “obviously” using someone else’s badge at all. Quite apart from which, I know someone who has no disability whatsoever and quite legitimately has a badge on account of a family member’s disability (they are the primary carer).

Breatheasy – we have the same arrangement with the Indian restaurant in Dunblane – less than a 100m walk away, with one minor road to cross.

Apparently that is still not close enough for some parents, every flipping day…

Our local pub recently installed gates to *stop* people using the car parks following one child running in front of a moving car and being knocked over 🙁

That video was truely special
There’s a full feature length version of that somewhere on YT.

I too am astonished at the number of parents who park to drop and collect, on the large, yellow, zigzag lines outside a school.
I once politely pointed out to a parent that they were parked on lines placed where they were, to protect pedestrians, especially and including their own children.

I received a look of complete and utter mystery, which for me, said it all.

, I know someone who has no disability whatsoever and quite legitimately has a badge on account of a family member’s disability (they are the primary carer).

Which is fair enough, but they shouldn’t really be using it when they’re out without the person they’re caring for.

we live on a narrow one way terraced street, next to a footy ground and a train station 10 mins away
it can get a bit hectic
i was approached by the insane (‘just call me dorris day, everyone else does’) old lady on the street about petitioning the council to get parking restrictions put on the street as one guy fixes up cars- and apparently his son thinks hes a gangster and stares threateningly? and another guy occasianally fits stereos for his mates
she will often come out and harrass any builder whos unloading or stopping in the street for more than a few minutes
weve got 2 young kids and it can be a pain, but its not that bad, yet every time I saw her shed say how tough we had it with 2 littleuns, she got more manic every time i saw her ‘have i wrtten to the council?’, ‘hes got even more cars now,’ ‘the other one swore at me and well he’s a muslim bastard anyway’ and so on. eventually i just told her i wasnt bothered and she shouldnt let it get to her
she looked at me with disgust and stormed off and has never spoken to me again 🙂

the funny thing is she is 1 of only 2 houses on the street that has its own drive way, with ample space for her Micra?!?

I got a laugh on a saturday morning.

I live at the bottom of a narrow road leading to a quarry, im right on the corner.

Im out in my garage working on something and a golf pulls up and parks between my drive and the road end- blocking most of the junction.

I come out the garage as i assume its a delivery or a visitor. And a well dressed mid 50s couple gets out.

Dont know them, they aint deliverying and they get their little dog out the boot, preparing to go walk.

I suggested they probably shouldnt park there and get it both barrels about how this pair of **** pay their taxes etc etc. i point out that i dont care where they park and its nothing to do with laws or taxes etc , just out of consideration for my neighbours and other users of the road you have now just blocked. Get told to mind my own business.

Im in the garage and i hear a tractor turn up the road as they do to go to the quarry…followed by a crunch as the trailer takes off the wing mirror and leaves a scrape up the side.

Mr townie comes back an hour or so later and comes right up to my garage accusing me of knocking his wing mirror off. Knowing it was a john deere green scrape up his car i just said- how many green cars do you see in my drive. I did tell you not to park there and it wasnt for my benifit. He was livid. No sympathy for the tit didnt tell him what happened just said been busy working in here mate, maybe next time youll take friendly advice.

Which is fair enough, but they shouldn’t really be using it when they’re out without the person they’re caring for.

I believe the rules allow the carer to use the car and badge if they are on business for the disabled person to whom the badge was granted.

However, in my case, I could never tolerate parking in a disabled parking slot, whether on business for said disabled person or not. Cos I’m not disabled. Well, I’m not physically disabled, at least.

People are odd in where they think they can park aren’t they? Was out on a late pootle around the local trails last Sunday, getting back to the house and I notice a muddy lady ramblist stood at the top of the hill that leads down to the parking behind our house. Private parking area, all off street, one space for each car, under each house – the benefits of living in a steep sided valley up North.
As I spin up to turn into the hill I notice she starts to get a bit …fidigity as a car tears up the hill (50m long its barely a car width wide and about 1/4) and tries to conceal the 4 other ramblists inside it who are trying not to look guilty as they’d parked there for the day.
She didn’t appreciate when I quipped “good thing you didn’t get spotted parking illegally by someone who lives here” the response of “it’s not fair” was cut short with “that you won’t pay to park like every other visitor?”.
Suffice to say she got in the car and they all stared at me as I waved bye bye. Funnily enough they could have parked FOR FREE in the front of my house on the road and I’d have given not a toss. Oh well.

Drives are often one space so basically you lose one public space to gain one private space or vice versa if someone parks across it.

AFAIK drives are private land for storing cars on whereas the road is for driving on, in effect the road side parkers are the freeloaders* using up vast amounts of road space that they don’t explicitly have a right to. Parking up and blocking a drive (as opposed to loading/unloading and staying with the car**) is bellendery whether or not there is a car parked on the drive.

*and yes I’m one of them
**atleast understandable if not defensible

Our current nursery also has parking issues, we’re friends with the owner and one of the stipulations when they opened was having a car park setup round the back as the road is busy, double yellows and the side street is very narrow. We are one of the few families that actually use the car park when picking up kids, most of the other parents park wholly on the pavement right outside the front door or block the side road, it’s a 30second walk ffs, a tiny proportion of the time it takes to pick your kids up (compared to going inside, finding them, finding out how their day went and then actually strapping them into the car)

That video was truely special

why are people so epically bad at parking? We’ve got a few shops/amenities on our street so lots of parking going on and sooo many people are just awful. I’ve stopped and watched (and chuckled) watching people trying to parallel park into vast spaces, cars with 1, 2 or 3(!) wheels on the pavement. Plenty of double parking too. Did these people not pass their test?

No sympathy for the tit didnt tell him what happened just said been busy working in here mate, maybe next time youll take friendly advice.

The really annoying thing about all that is he will likely continue to think that you smashed his wing mirror off and completely fail to learn his lesson or understand how any of it was his fault. 🙁

They have never been back . That was 4-5 months ago now.

If you park on the road outside my garden wall/hedge it is almost 100% impossible to J turn or reverse onto my drive due to the extreme narrowness of our cul de sac. Because of this my neighbour with two cars parks his car inconsideratly across his own drive and standing further out so it affects/blocks everyone on the end of the cul de sac. I guess its like a soft-bully to try and turn other neighbours against me by his actions saying ‘look at him’. He knows its difficult/the design so does a silent protest.

I’m in the throws of planning for my drive to be widened which will half said parking space as well. Madness.

This was just abandoned in a street near me one morning.
Was a cul de sac too so blocking people

Surely that ^ just rolled out of the space opposite?

Ok, here are a couple of my old ones. I used to dump the car where ever.

Not sure what’s worse, showing photo’s of your dodgy parking or admitting you had a Puma.. 😉

Where I work we have block in bays. People are allowed to double park provided they leave their name and mobile number visible and move their car by 16:30.

On Monday i sued one of the blocked in bays. 1625 I’m ready to go home so walk out to my car. It’s blocked in, no problem I’ll wait 5 minutes. 1630 – no sign of the owner of the blocking car. I give her a call – voicemail. Back into my car to listen to The Infinite Monkey Cage. 1645 – give her another call – voicemail. 17:00 – the same. 17:15 the driver of the car next to me comes out and manages to get his car past the blocker. I then start a 100 point turn to get out in the middle of which she calls back. I told her that saying sorry didn’t really make it better then as my commute takes 2 hours at rush hour left it and headed for home.

I could report her and get her banned from that carpark but I won’t – karma,

Glad I scratched that itch 8)

Parking up and blocking a drive
Now gets you a £30 fine and a shot at asking for your car back, after it’s been towed!

I believe the rules allow the carer to use the car and badge if they are on business for the disabled person to whom the badge was granted.

You believe wrongly.