All I want for Christmas... Is to park on my driveway!

[Beki710]

Okay so that doesn't quite fit the lyrics but you get the idea...

I live on a main road, my flat technically has a driveway but it's small, I mean really small. I have a yaris, I can get it on, the back wheels are on the pavement and you have to squeeze out of the doors but by having my car on it overnight I get lower insurance.

To give you an idea here is a shot of google earth of my driveway (I'm not too concerned about posting a pic of house, I'm moving anyway and I'd been very impressed if you could tell me where this is!)



So onto the problems

1. People don't realise it's a driveway
The amount of time I've been out and come back to find someone has parked over it. There's a taxi firm near by and they always hover on the main road if they have no jobs and always over my drive!
Yesterday I have a Gas Van parked over it with no one inside. My road is double yellow parking on the street so I had to park 3 streets away walk back and ended up leaving a note on his van as I had no idea where'd he'd gone.

2. People don't seem to realise where your going when you indicate into it.

So I'm driving down the left side of the road, need to turn right. Slow down right indicator on - there is nowhere else I could be turning. Traffic clear the opposite direction, oh no wait I cant go some arsehole is overtaking me on the right-hand side! This has happened more than once and I'm pretty certain next time I will end up crashing as they've been very close near misses...

3. Impatience
Well this is just your normal impatient idiot. Often people will slow down and flash me out when I'm reversing to get off the driveway. I've had a few near misses from impatient people overtaking the car letting me out only to see what they've slowed down for. Yep me! In my tiny car getting off my tiny driveway!

Okay rant over. I just needed to get it off my chest. I'm moving soon anyway! YAY!

[LillFilly]

If someone blocks your driveway, or parks in it, could you call to have them towed? The driveway is yours, after all.

[AccountingDrone]

Isn't there some sort of 'no parking' color for road stripes you could paint to indicate no parking, or a pair of council no parking signs with arrows no parking>______<no parking ? We have them in the US ...

[Beki710]

I don't know if I could paint my drive as it's rented accommodation and I don't now if the landlord would agree.

I would definitely consider towing though but usually its people that seem to be there for 15 min max. More often than not by the time I've found somewhere else to park and got back to the house they've gone.

[RealUnimportant]

Without wishing to take this into Fratching territory...

If you have a dropped kerb & people park across it, call the local authority to have them ticketed for illegal parking; just be warned that if your car is hanging over the pavement they may ticket you too. As for backing off your driveway, you might want to review the Highway Code.