Before I go getting all unreasonable.....

Now, before I get off on the wrong foot with this, I want to be clear that the neighbours in my street are great and I do not have an issue with any of them, nor do I wish to have; BUT, there is an issue that is starting to somewhat pee me off now, and despite mentioning the problem to more than one of the neighbours in a nice subtle conversational way (yes, I can be subtle! ), it seems to be getting worse.

In short, the way that people are parking is making it increasingly difficult for me to get into and out of my driveway - perhaps they are doing it as most will have seen my hi-vis work attire and know that I am not without a bit of skill in the driving department, but is that a suitable excuse?

This was the view that greeted me from my driveway this morning:



The Focus on the left has been parked there for a couple of weeks now, and hasn't moved - not overly sure who owns it, but think it is one of the houses across the street and to the left on the picture. The white BMW belongs to a fairly regular overnight visitor to my neighbour.

Here is the view once I have pulled forward to the point of exiting which might give some more perspective:



The above shows my car just at the top of the small slope that is my driveway - when I leave my driveway, I want to turn right (the same way that the Audi is going). To get into my driveway yesterday after work, I had no choice but to drive up the driveway of the neighbours across the road (straddling the adjacent driveways of the two houses, to get a straight enough 'line' in fact), before reversing into my drive.

With the way these cars, particularly the BMW, are parked, I cannot turn right but instead have to turn left then go up the street and turn around - no biggie as such, but an inconvenience. What is really peeing me off though is that even turning left, it is a pretty close thing as to whether I can get the car straightened up enough as the kerb edge starts to rise, the booby prize being a chunked alloy or a nipped tyre sidewall.

The exact same situation presented itself to me when I was leaving for work yesterday monring - at 4am, in the dark, whilst trying to get the car started and out of there as quickly as reasonably possible to try and not wake any neighbours up. Yesterday morning, I rubbed my offside front wheel, and although the damage is very minor (I was going slowly enough), it is still frustrating - and having lashed out £400 on a set of new tyres only a couple of weeks ago I really don't want any nipped sidewalls.

Here is the view of my driveway 'gap' (on the right) as viewed once I have turned around and am now heading the way I want to be going as it was this morning:



And for further perspective, a view of my driveway, which as you will see is different to all the other drives in the street in as much as it is only one car's width and is an 'in and out' job - not much scope for shunting back and forth to get a better angle.



So, do I have a point or am I being an unreasonable git?

 

Your dropped kerb is not centrally aligned with your driveway. I suppose that encourages neighbours to park right up to where the dropped kerb starts/stops which as well as being offset, as Scrungee says, is too narrow anyway.

 

No, reconstruction is not an option, and to be honest it is none of my business. All I am asking is that some consideration is given when parking.

I tried to park over my driveway, but ironically the position of the Focus is such that I would block my neighbours drive as well as my own, and could only do that if the visitors car isn't there (it wouldn't even fit if her car was there) - besides, I have declared that my car lives in a driveway for insurance purposes, so leaving it overnight would leave me open to problems if it got damaged.

Re the drainage - there is a pea-gravel/silt gully along the length of the wall between my drive and next doors; I think it is just a soak away, but it seems to work as even in the heaviest rain I have never seen water discharging over the footpath. The driveways themselves were installed by the council - all of them on this side of the street are the same (typical Surrey council - the cheapest option only!), but goodness knows when they were done as the houses have been here since the late 20's.

Parking is a bit tight in this street at times, and I am not looking to be given a football field's worth of space at all times - we all need to come and go a bit to make it work. I think this past couple of weeks it has really got to me because of the bloody Focus - if I had it at one side or the other, I wouldn't care, but both together got on my goat.

I'll speak to my neighbour next time I see him - he probably hasn't even given it a thought, as he is a decent guy.

 

I think that is part of the problem @pete - this house has had three 'tenants' since being built, us being the third. The entire area was an orchard until it was built upon in the late 20's or early 30's, and when the houses were built any driveway space was intended for one car and one car only (probably an Austin 7 at that!); there are three delivery vans in the street alone (although one of them, the people that own it technically live in the street around the corner, but they are on the corner if that makes sense), working from the end of the street, car numbers per house are as follows - on my side it is:

3 cars (2 fit in a drive)
1 car (2 if visitor is overnighting), 1 van (both fit in the drive)
1 car (mine) (fits in the drive)
2 cars (both fit in the drive)
then there is nothing for quite a distance until the next house.

Opposite, it is:
1 car (no drive)
1 car (fits in its drive)
4 cars (5 if a boyfriend is overnighting), 1 Sprinter van - (drive can take two cars and a van or four cars)
2 cars (both fit in their drive)
1 car (in drive)
4 cars (drive can accommodate 8 or 9, but often only 2 or three are in there)
5 cars (four fit in a drive at a push) and then it is way off up the street.

So, in 11 houses there is 26 vehicles as a minimum........

 

Absolutely nothing legal you can do about it :( The council won't help you, neither will your local Highways nor the police... Although the highway code says you can't block access / egress to a driveway, no-one seems able to enforce it. We had something similar-ish here where a nearby school meant lots of cars at dropoff times and lots of blocked accesses. Eventually (and I mean years) the council put white lines across all driveways up the road, but only on the school side... You'll never guess what happened next lol

It's damned aggravating but I think you're left with polite conversations and redressing the dropped curb outside your drive.