Um... No. You can't park blocking my driveway.

[PentUpRage]

Something about being in a more or less recreation area or on vacation that seems to turn some people into jackasses.

Preach it brotha.

Sigh.

I live in a resort town, across the street from a very popular restaurant. They park in my yard. They pee in my yard. They walk their dogs in my yard to go poo. Abusive? Oh my...if you even DARE to ask someone to move their boat from your yard they yell obscenities. I mean, come on people, aren't you supposed to be relaxed when you're on vacation?

[Erin]

If they dont move their boat, keep the local towing company on speed dial and hope that the boat owners take their time in the restaurant.

[underemployeed]

Preach it brotha.

Sigh.

I live in a resort town, across the street from a very popular restaurant. They park in my yard. They pee in my yard. They walk their dogs in my yard to go poo. Abusive? Oh my...if you even DARE to ask someone to move their boat from your yard they yell obscenities. I mean, come on people, aren't you supposed to be relaxed when you're on vacation?

You just don't know how to have fun, you need a sailors cap and some beers. jump up in his boat and pretend to be the caption. You might as well leave him the empties and see how pissed they really get for you having fun on your own property. OR Invest in a boot. Im sure If you booted cars that illegally parked, people might not want to do it.

[Yfandes]

We live half a block from a popular shopping street with bars and restaurants, and two and a half blocks from the beach. Like many here we often wake up to cars blocking the driveway, and have the tow company on speed dial. But the best was when hubby walked outside during the day to see someone just leaving his car parked across our driveway.

Hubby: Please don't park your car there, its blocking the driveway.
Idjit: I'm just going to be a few minutes, don't be an a$$hole!!!
Hubby: No, an a$$hole would have just let you park and then called the tow company....

The idjit moved his car muttering darkly about how selfish my hubby is


Samples of other idjits excuses:

"I was just unloading my groceries! I didn't think you were home!"
Your truck has been blocking the drive for an hour. And both our cars were in the driveway, you could have knocked and ASKED if you could block us in.

"But I'm only blocking half the driveway!!" And there is a HUGE palm tree on either side of our narrow (10 foot wide) driveway. Halfway across blocks our trucks in fully.

"I was drunk and pulled over and parked!!" Great - you were driving drunk at all....

[Magpie]

I confess that I come off badly in this story, because I didn't tell the woman off.

She pulls up to the bus stop, into the hatched area (where the bus can pull off the road to pick up people), leaves her car and goes to the market. She then comes back, proceeds to ask someone waiting for the bus (you know, the people who she's lucky didn't pick her car and move it) to help her load the car. Speaking of coming off badly, I did so because I thought that this would get rid of her . No such luck, she left again, and came back right as the bus was arriving.

She then seemed upset that the bus driver was leaning on his horn. Seriously, I don't care that you're from out of town. I don't care if you're from a small town, or a suburb, and have never taken the bus. I know people from small towns who can drive better in a city than I can, not blocking the twenty people for your own shopping is fairly basic, even if you don't recognise yellow hatching on the pavement as meaning "don't park here".

[Racket_Man]

I live directly behind a high school. parking is allowed on one side of my very very short street. the other side is used for the school bus loading/unloading zone and is designated a no parking zone during school hours (though no one really parks there anyway unless it is a Friday during the fall details below).

there is really only one house on this block (mine) and 2 driveways (one is mine and one is the house next to us whose garage faces my street). the space between the drivways is barely long enough to park a scooter but not a car.

during the school year we always have the following happen (thank goodness the city parking enforcement person drives by at least 3 or 4 times per day)

1. cars will be parked partially blocking one or both of the drivways (ticket)
2. a car will attempt to park between the driways (ticket)
3. a car will park in front of a fire hydrant (ticket)

NOW the big problem occurs during the Fall Football season. this usually happens on a Friday night. Cars will be parked ALL OVER the place including blocking the driveways. as I work a short shift on Fridays, it is hard sometimes to even get INTO my driveway after work. the REAL problem is that the city parking enforcement person NEVER comes around during that time.

[PentUpRage]

All these things, I would love to do. But I can't. Legally speaking (and I've been informed of this after having people towed) that 30 feet from the center of the road is fair game for parking. Essentially, they can park to my front porch if they wanted to. (Narrow road) Per village regulations, they are allowed to use the setback. I can't put up a fence, set rocks or turn on my sprinkler. True story...the chief of police told me that running a sprinkler on parked cars would be considered vandalism and I'd be ticketed.
I've resorted to humiliation and hand to hand combat.

[Chromatix]

Thirty feet from the centre of the road... on *private property*? That's screwed up.

In Britain the rules are clear:
- You can park on your own property.
- You can park at the side of the road.
- You must obtain permission (maybe implicit) from the landowner before parking on their private property.
- You must not block footpaths or other public rights of way, or recognised access points to private property (such as driveways).
- You must not park where legal signs and road markings (which in Britain are in standard forms) forbid it.
- You must not park on motorways (except to deal with an emergency), or near enough to junctions to impair their safety.

Generally in Britain, the line between public and private land is marked by a wall, fence, hedge, etc. I don't know anyone who doesn't have at least one of those. Rules against putting one up on your own land are... questionable IMHO.

[Magpie]

In my parents' neighbourhood it's 2m or so from the edge of the road that they technically don't own. However, they don't have sidewalks (it was built back when cars were something everyone owned). So, as my mother explained it to me, basically the city owns the land where the sidewalk is, even though there's no sidewalk there yet. This might be similar?

Of course, there's no way that you'd be allowed to park there, with or without the sidewalk.

[blas]

We don't have that problem around here.

We have other problems, like tenants' family and friends parking in other people's spots or playing parking police with other tenants if THEIR friends or family dare try the same, but not the problem with anyone parking anywhere nearby where they could block the entrances/exits.

Courtesy of Sheriff and his ghetto giant cordless phone he always has with him, as he peeps out his window all day waiting for someone to park just a bit too close.

[underemployeed]

All these things, I would love to do. But I can't. Legally speaking (and I've been informed of this after having people towed) that 30 feet from the center of the road is fair game for parking. Essentially, they can park to my front porch if they wanted to. (Narrow road) Per village regulations, they are allowed to use the setback. I can't put up a fence, set rocks or turn on my sprinkler. True story...the chief of police told me that running a sprinkler on parked cars would be considered vandalism and I'd be ticketed.
I've resorted to humiliation and hand to hand combat.

Yeah screw the police chief because It is just water and they are in your yard that needs to be watered. Actually most of the cities/villages around here don't allow parking in your own yard they go as far as to try and cite people who are in the bed of a pickup truck unloading landscapes supplies. Haha and the former mayor city by us is in shit for allowing the ticketing people because they don't consider gravel driveways to be a valid "maintained" parking surface. To the point the police were told to abandon at least one of their lots by parking enforcement of they would start fining them, (Yeah really they so power hungry they want to piss of the guys who have to rescue them from screaming people on a daily basis). We have that 30ft thing too but my house is 150ft off the road that doesn't stop idiots from riding past my bedroom window with a snowmobile. and it is on purpose as both neighbors have fences up by the road.

Might suggest to whoever can change the regulations they forbid parking in that area that public domain. Which even then the intended purpose of that 30ft was not so some random person could park in your yard, main idea was utilities and road expansion

edit: Just though of this, call the police chief anytime some parks in your yard for vandalism from the tire marks and lawn damage.

[ADoyle90815]

I live a block away from a middle school, and an elementary school next to that. As a result, as soon as school gets out, it's difficult to get in and out of my street and neighborhood because parents are waiting to pick up their children. Sometimes they do block my driveway.

[Kogarashi]

My apartment complex is home to a daycare in addition to all the university graduate students, and the complex is next door to one elementary school and across the street from another. There is street parking allowed from our complex driveway to the intersection (away from the neighbor school), and no parking anytime from the driveway to about halfway down the block past the neighbor school and at all across the street by the other school (said school has a roundabout-style driveway and back parking area for the buses and parents to pick up children). Also, according to lot signage, there are two parking spaces in our complex's cramped parking lot that are daycare-parking-only for a set time in the morning and afternoon (dropoff and pickup times). The rest of the complex lot is tenant-only parking, one car per apartment (additional cars need to go on the street).

Whenever school gets out, there are cars lined up all along the street despite the No Parking signs. No one ever seems to enforce this. It makes pulling out of our parking lot a real hazard, as the street is on a bit of a hill and the slope, combined with street-parked cars (even the legal ones), makes it nearly impossible to see oncoming traffic until you're halfway out in the street already.

In our parking lot, not only do we have to deal with tenants parking two or more cars in the lot, depriving others of us from space, we also have to put up with the parents of the daycare children taking up every square inch of the lot when the daycare gets out at five. It's always the ones who want to stay inside and socialize, too. We're not allowed to occupy their two parking spaces during pickup times, but they don't return the same courtesy to us, and I've even gotten dirty looks from some parents when I park my car and head to my apartment (halfway across the complex from the daycare) because OMG I'm taking up the space they neeeeeeeeeeed. I've learned not to come home from grocery shopping around five, because I will not be able to park anywhere near my door and will end up having to lug all the groceries from the other end of the complex.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Actually... the big fall festival near where I live the property value has that benefit figured in.. some people with big yards can take the whole time off away from work and make MORE money that week than they would actually working.

They also pay for their property taxes that way as well.

I've heard of that happening at homes right next to the entrance at some of the race tracks as well.

Me, my then b/f and my brother went to see a NASCAR race years ago in Martinsville, VA. Parking lots were crammed full, but we were able to find a nice spot in someone's front yard a couple of houses from the track entrance for a few dollars.

I'm sure that family made quite a killing that day . . . . NASCAR fans are a special group.

[ArcticChicken]

Across the street from my house there is a school or something for children with cerebral palsy. They have their own parking lot, and yet every week day there is a large white SUV parked next to our driveway, all damn day. Unfortunately, we live on a hill, and when there are cars parked next to the driveway we can't see up the hill. There have been at least three accidents because of this.

One time the bitch in the white SUV parked blocking our driveway. I'm sure she didn't do it without realizing that there's a driveway there, because I've seen her parked with her nose precisely on the edge of our driveway before. We were told we couldn't have her towed because we didn't have a contract with the towing company. She did, however, get three parking tickets.