Section 224 of the highway code states that cars and goods vehicles not exeeding 1525 kg unladen may park without lights. I think many of the larger Transit type vans weigh more than this.
I agree, I used to drive a Transit beavertail pick-up which had a GVW of 3500kg but only 1500kg capacity, hence it weighed 2000kg empty.
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Whilst I might try to be tolerant of the guy parking his lorry outside my bedroom window (on the wrong side of a residential road, no lights), and not outside his own house, I'm a bit less sympathetic about it when he sets off for work at 3.30 a.m.
Carole
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It appears to me a Merc 307D is that's any help, although I suspect the bodywork will affect the ULW.
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Look, call me Victor Meldrew if you like, but why are there so many large vans outside people's houses these days. I particularly hate those belonging to big organisations (BT, British Gas) because surely they must have depots somewhere to park them. But does every small tradesman need a Transit the size of a small bus?
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Well Victor Its like this. When BG come to fix your central heating/ cooker et.et. they need enough spares to stock a shop to cope with all the different types of boilers in use.
Have a look inside when the doors are open. Usually looks like a small warehouse. Same applies to plumbers et al.In the past they used to start the day from a central depot but nowadays its more efficient to utilise the engineers parking facilities for the van overnight and saves the companies cash in not having to have large areas of tarmac doing nothing all day. Might even get them to their first job of the day a bit quicker, Who Knows?
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Victor Meldrew.
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I have to admit that the number of vans parked up on driveways in residential streets has put me off buying houses on a couple of occasions. I don't want to spend my weekend living in the unloading bay of a business park. This must have an effect on property prices: next door to one house I went to look at a few years ago the bloke had parked a three axle readymix concrete wagon that came up to the upstairs windows. It seemed a pleasant enough house and in good nick, but I didn't even knock on the door.
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ISTR that large lorries, requiring commericial vehicle taxation, must be parked in a proper location at night - this is part of the requirements for the local council to grant approval to the operating company. If you keep getting a 3-axle concrete mixer parking in your road, try contacting your local council's business licensing section/department.
Transit vans are exempt from this :-((
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ISTR that large lorries, requiring commericial vehicle taxation, must be parked in a proper location at night - this is part of the requirements for the local council to grant approval to the operating company. If you keep getting a 3-axle concrete mixer parking in your road, try contacting your local council's business licensing section/department. Transit vans are exempt from this :-((
and they must be lit if on public highway!
Also covenants can come into play although that is a civil matter.
Of course what may be an obvious and intelligent solution to some may turn out to be an irritation to others.
Compare the other guy's mamba van / caravan combination parked outside his house to my sailing dinghy and trailer parked in the garage. Both not allowed according to "the rules."
Chill.
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When I first moved to our present house a few years ago I was working on the tools and had a long wheelbase Merc 308D van. A couple of the neighbours complained to the local council that it was lowering the tone of the street. The van was parked on a large drive and backed up against the garage. I could'nt believe peoples attitude towards it, as a electrical/mechanical engineer I needed a large van to carry spares and tools.
Now I have a £40,000 Merc sitting on the drive no one seems to complain.
I think it is called snobbery.
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My brother in law works for Transco and has a LWB Transit and compressor. He is on call overnight and weekends to deal with gas leaks, hence the need to have van at home ready to go, rather than the depot 6 minutes away.
When not on call, the first job in the morning may be in the opposite direction to the depot, thereby saving time (and money).
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The lease agreement on my Barratts 'box' states no vans, caravans etc. You can't erect any form of fence, wall or hedge to the front of the house either. Can't even have satellite dishes.
It just keeps the development looking pleasant, if people obey that is.
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Here's a previous thread on a similar issue.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=11774&...f
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DD, Mark, No Dosh
Perhaps the two threads should be joined??
Hugo
Done. ND<<
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I sympathise here. We have someone on the street that parks a ruddy great Merc box van. It would be bad enough if they parked it outside their house, but they usually park it either outside or near mine (at the other end of the street) although I suspect this is mainly because it's too big to get down the street easily. Of course they should have thought of this before moving in, but I suspect they don't care. It's already succeeded in blocking access for the binmotor to the street twice that I know of but nothing gets done and I suspect we just have to live with it...
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Well I'm afraid to say I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who complains about what other people park on their own driveways. It's hard enough these days to find work that pays, without the added hassle of complaints from your neighbours. It's a bit like saying you want to have a say in what your neighbour does for a living.
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As someone who posted a thread here recently on society's and the authoreties' discrimination on vans and commercial vehicles used for private purposes, I really could not pass up the chance to comment on this.
I think there are two issues here.
FIRSTLY
I used to live on a detached housing development. My next door neigbour on one side was a builder and on the other side was a mechanic on call out.
They both had vans. I had no issue with their vans, especially as I bought one of my own just before Christmas!
We had no complaints and to my knowledge, house prices in our cul de sac did not tumble as a result.
HOWEVER
Unfortunately, the builder did get a number of barbed comments in his direction, not because of his van though. He had an overrun of vehicles in general and usually parked at least one in the cu de sac (3 pt turn bit). That made it very difficult for anyone else to turn around.
Hence I feel that people should have right to park a vehicle of their choice in their drive or outside their house.
The difficulties understandably arise when;
The van is a quatifiable nuicance to other residents
The van is often parked in inappropriate places eg blocking out the light through someone else's window in a terraced house
A business is being carried out in connection with the van that causes a nuicance (such as a factory in a garage)
The position of the van (near a junction for example) is a hazard to other road users and pedestrians.
However, I feel that those levelling complaints should think twice when;
The van is obviously connected with a person's employment - OK whose going to tell my old next door neigbour mechanic to change jobs or move out of the area?
Every reasonable care is taken to minimise the impact of the van on the neigbour hood, such as parking it in a drive rather than on the road, or at least keeping it clean and presentable
The van is, as in the vast majority of cases, legally on the road.
Next time you see commercial vehicles in and around residential areas, think why they are there rather than isn't it a shame they are there.
Hugo
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I agree with you Hugo. If it fits on the driveway, then no one should have any problems with a van, whatever the restrictive covenants say.
If there are no driveways, then if it fits in a normal parking space (like flats), I can see no problems.
Maybe when there are rows of terraced houses and the van is blocking out someone else's light, it's inconsiderate, but in many cases probably also unavoidable.
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"and to my knowledge, house prices in our cul de sac did not tumble as a result"
I suggest that in most "detached housing developments" the widespread parking of vans would be considered as 'lowering the tone of the neighbourhood'.
A classic case of NIMBY!
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Maybe living in the South West leads to a more relaxed attitude over this.
We tend to have more than our fair share of good tradesmen, as I suppose, we are hardly in the stockbroker commuter belt!
To be honest, until I saw this thread I never thought anyone would get upset about my van at all.
Hugo
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Well think yourselves lucky you dont have neighbours who burn out cars they drove home in the night before, like in some areas.
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Quite right Cardew. As I said I have been put off buying perfectly good and suitable houses in streets where there are a lot of vans and other commercial vehicles parked. Others will do the same and that will inevitably impact on house prices, especially when the market is not so buoyant.
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Look, call me Victor Meldrew if you like, but why are there so many large vans outside people's houses these days. I particularly hate those belonging to big organisations (BT, British Gas) because surely they must have depots somewhere to park them. But does every small tradesman need a Transit the size of a small bus?
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As someone who works for one of the above mentioned big organisations let me put the other side.
When the utilities were large and publicly owned everyone moaned about the cost and service, so the cost of the drive for efficiency and hence lower prices and cheaper, not necessarily better, service has been the phenomena you describe.
Certain of the utilities have retreated into their core businesses, this has involved the selling off of the freeholds of a lot of their depots and the leasing back of same from dedicated property management companies. Believe it or not some of these companies actually charge for vehicles to be garaged at the depot overnight, hence a cost saving if the van is garaged out.
The utility also gets a benefit because the engineer, to avoid tax complications, now has to travel to his first job in his own time & give the company an additional 15 minutes or so on top, also has to do the same at the end of the day, 15 minutes plus his travel time. Hence engineer is at his job earlier and company gets an extra job or so a day out of him. Benefit to the engineer is he doesn't have to run a, possibly second, vehicle to get to work only for it to sit in the yard all day and gather cobwebs.
Customer facing engineers these days also work some pretty strange hours, for instance, if you have to do some cabling in the local 24 hour supermarket it can only be done when it shuts at 22:00 on Sat until 10:00 on Sun or from 16:00 on Sunday until 08:00 Mon. If the engineer doesn't have to make a special trip to pick up his vehicle then he is much more inclined to cover those sort of hours. Also many business customers now run 24 hour operations and demand a 24 hour service for maintenance therefore being called out of bed at 1,2 or 3 in the morning is not unusual, again makes life easier for everyone.
As to the size of vehicles, a few years ago most of the guys on call would probably drive an Escort or Fiesta sized van so most people didn't really notice them. Today the same engineer probably covers three times as many skills and products for which the above mentioned 24 hour business customer expects him to be carrying the spares, hence the move towards Transit sized vehicles.
Personally, I hate the idea of having a Transit parked on my drive and have managed to hold out with an Escort but, unfortunately, my days are numbered. The Escort van is no more and my next vehicle will be the new Transit Connect, not as big as the proper thing but still too big for my liking.
I think it is just one of the things that we have to put up with in today's society, people want the service cheaper and quicker and people have to earn a living I'm afraid.
Cockle
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I tend to live and let live. If people need to park vans outside their homes, who am I to say they shouldn't.
The more interesting question is why they need to. I used to insure my car with the RAC. I did this for years because I once went into the RAC insurance office in Bristol and got brilliant service. For years afterwards I never even thought much about it, I just renewed at the same office. (this was before Direct Line)
Then, one year, I drove across town to renew my insurance one Saturday afternoon. As per usual I had left it late. When I got there, I found that the office was no longer open. It had closed. A notice on the door said it had closed in the interest of efficiency and so that RAC could provide a better service for its customers. There was a telephone number on the notice so I went to a telephone box and rang it. It rang and rang and I didn't get an answer.
Many Company's don't have depot's any more. They have outworkers. Some of those outworkers have vans which they have to park outside their homes.
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