Would second this advice, but would also ask two questions: -
1. Has the offender recently moved onto the road? If so, how recently?
2. Is there a covenant within the deeds of your house preventing the parking of any type of vehicle other than a pasenger car on the drive or road? You may need your solicitor to answer this one. If the answer is yes, then although the offender is being antisocial, he may be making an accurate and legal point.
However still get teh boys in blue to have a word. Why not discuss with a neighbour as well? Have they been affected by the noise - do they want to complain?
|
Don't know about recently moved in but this is what i thought. They live further round in the estate so couldn't be sure.
Yes it is affecting my neighbours too as well as people further up the street.
My friend works at the solicitors who dealt with our house i will ask her to look into this for me but there are numerous vans throughout the estate.
I did ask an old friend who is a police officer about the prob, he said that it would not be taken that seriously unless they weren't busy. CSPO might be a good idea, i will look into finding out who these are. The parking situation is not ideal but it has not been a problem for the last 4 yrs and what I find really irritating is why not come knock on the door and ask to discuss it.
I have typed a polite letter explaining that the noise is disturbing the residents and if he has an issue please discuss it with the people it involves (us, our neighbours, etc) and any alternative suggestions would be welcomed. My husband is going to drop it off tomo.
|
Someone should go out and ask why he is making all the clamour. That will put him - I doubt if it's a her - in a position where he has to admit that he is too languid to turn the steering wheel of his car this way and that. Prat.
I am slightly surprised though that no one here has criticised your old man for putting a couple of wheels on the pavement, Polly. I think it's all right myself, often necessary, but some people make an awful song and dance about it.
|
|
|
I have typed a polite letter explaining that the noise is disturbing the residents and if he has an issue please discuss it with the people it involves
IMO, that is what would have been a good tactic 10 or more years ago. Today, it may provoke someone in to physical violence, with your family being the losers.
Again, IMO, best to let the CPSO deal with it.
Edited by jbif on 15/11/2008 at 22:23
|
|
PCSO ! I thought for a moment you meant some sort of Star Wars robot.
|
PCSO ! I thought for a moment you meant some sort of Star Wars robot.
sometmies I tpye so fsat taht hte lettres gte jmbuled pu.
|
|
|
|
It's a really unfortunate situation. You say you and your neighbours have drives. Do you have garages too? Lots of modern residential estates do.
It's always difficult when there is the chance of falling out with neighbours, but some people take the view that parking half on the kerb and half in the road is anti-social and when the people across the road do the same that will make the road very narrow.
Of course it would be better if your neighbour spoke to you about the problem, but if he did how would you propose to resolve it? You don't like him disturbing you, but he doesn't like you narrowing the road.
I can't see a solution other than selling one of the cars.
|
I still firmly hold the belief:
Roads are for traffic.
Pavements are for pedestrians.
I would never consider a property that didn't have enough off-road space to park my vehicles.
We have a situation in my locality where vehicles are being parked on a bus route, causing obstructions. The properties are all forty-year-old detached, with space for at least two vehicles off-road.
I cannot understand why they feel the need to park on the road, often opposite another parked vehicle.
|
"I cannot understand why they feel the need to park on the road, often opposite another parked vehicle."
Having grown up in the 1980s in such a newly built road (and when people didn't worry about such things) , I would say this is because the last car in would block the others, and the last car home at night may also be the last out in the morning and a lot of people shunting and restarting cars with doors repeated opening and closing before they get to work would be even more disturbing for neighbours. Also, you can't really get planning permission to build homes with adequate parking or even gardens these days (thanks two-Jags Prescott).
Edited by Hamsafar on 15/11/2008 at 23:41
|
I live on a development where there is a covenant stating that large 'trade' type vans may not be parked and nor may caravans, except when loading or unloading for a holiday.
I understand that parking on a pavement is not illegal but driving on one is and one has to drive on it to park on it! However it does help access for emergency vehicles etc so I think the 'offence' is overlooked.
I thought it was illegal to sound one's horn during the hours of darkness, other than in an emergency, presumably?
|
|
just ignore the coward, i'm sure he will stop doing it soon enough
|
There is no excuse for waking your child at 9.30 at night. However, pavements are for pedestrians.
Is it just a couple of wheels off the road or considerably more?
Clk Sec
|
The OP does say part on road, part off... personally I don't have a problem as long as the pavement and road are not blocked... with regard to the pavement the space left should easilty be wide enough to allow passage of a double buggie (two abreast type) - if it isn't the car shouldn't be there and I have reported badly parked cars to the police who took apprpriate action...
One concern I have with vans on pavements is that they are more of a danger to children and other pedestrians, you can't see round them and the driver's view is much more limited than in a car when they are driving on or off - I think it would be better with the van on the drive and car on the road/pavement - more room on the road then as well?
|
>>The OP does say part on road, part off...
I should hope so - although it's not uncommon to see cars and vans blocking the entire width of a pavement and forcing pedestrians onto the road.
Clk Sec
|
|
I don't think so! Bullies/cowards don't quit until they are confronted! PCSO is the way forward; a friend of mine lives in a cul de sac with pedestrian access to a primary school and the 15 minutes around 0900 and 1530 were a nightmare until a PCSO turned up for a few days and laid down the law to people blocking resident's driveways and double parking.
|
A bit like a dog barking.
Just ignore him and he'll stop.
|
Whilst his reaction seems stupid in that the 'guilty' party doesn't even have any certainty about the reasons for his action, put yourself in his place. Your vehicle is impeding his free passage along a public highway, and does so every single day. Why should he have to manoeuver because you have decided that the space you have so generously left is sufficient for him?
Isn't this the same mentality as 'It'll be alright to stop on this yellow line because I'm only going to be 2 minutes", "I'm in a hurry so 50 in a 30 limit will be OK just for today", etc?
|
People who park their vehicles on the road in a housing estate when they have a drive/garage annoy me.
And if you must have lots of vehicles, then you should buy somewhere with sufficient parking.
Vans parked all over housing estates are also irritating.
I'm not having a go at the OP, seems everyone in her road does it and they are all content.
I live in a terraced street - my car is parked off the road at the back, but the tobacco baron opposite took to parking his van outside my front window.
Wasn't too bothered, I tend to live in the rooms at the back.
When I did speak to him about it, he said the van was there because I was the only person in the street who didn't complain about it.
|
People shouldn't be sanctimonious about having a couple of wheels on the pavement. Very often it can't be helped as so many roads aren't built to allow proper parking. People can't just move to a bigger house because they have an extra car!!
The fool blowing his horn is breaking the law and I think if you insist in a nice way then the police will do something about it, like lie in wait for him.
Too many little people these days think they have the right to throw their weight around when they think they've been crossed. I'd be plotting my revenge against that horn blower if it was my kids getting woken up.....
|
OP says that the van is parked in such a way that there is free access for a vehicle the size a skip lorry. How can this be impedeing the free access of a car and what does the hooting person think he is acheiving by his actions? Perhaps he would like the vehicle to be legally parked, completely on the road, thus giving him even less space to pass? The person is an anti-social, low IQ loser, IMO. Get the authorities involved in some way and let them deal with it. I reiterate my point about the sounding a horn during the hours of darkness - illegal SFAIK.
Re post by ifithelps - with so many houses in multi occupancy or multi vehicle owenership parking on the road may be the only option, even if there is a garage and a drive
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 16/11/2008 at 09:49
|
Poster, does not state if it is a transit type van or a small van ?
As always there are two sides to a story ?
Part parking on the pavement it not a problem (although I think it not allowed) but as long as you allow enough room for buggeis etc to pass, which in theory cannot be the issue in this case ?
|
Suburban housing estates do seem to bring out the pettiness in people. We live on one at present. Our address is -
Nicehouse
Nicestreet
Nicetown
But the underlying current of curtain twitching fueds and parking disputes etc is almost hilarious to behold. Never have I lived in such a narrow minded and self interested community.
I have had the fortune or perhaps misfortune to live in many different locations both in this country and abroad. Most of the time I have either been in large, often, capital cities or right out in the sticks. This small town little people mentality is a new one on me and I don't like it.
In cities, unless you are very priveleged, getting parked within three streets of your house is a bonus and no one bothers about it.
In yawnurbia everyone is so defensive of their little patch of land and as in your case a wheel misplaced can cause apoplexy. Can you believe that a neighbour of mine has had complaints about parking his van on his own drive because it "looks unsightly" ?
Ignore him, hopefully he will choke on his own bile one night.
|
Suburban housing estates do seem to bring out the pettiness in people. We live on one at present. Our address is - Nicehouse Nicestreet Nicetown But the underlying current of curtain twitching fueds and parking disputes etc is almost hilarious to behold. Never have I lived in such a narrow minded and self interested community.
Oh, Amen to that. We bought our first flat on a locally notorious council estate, lived there for four years, and then reflected an improvement in our financial position by buying a house on a new-ish "executive" development in a sleepy town in an affluent part of Hampshire.
I don't want to say anything too nasty as we have some lovely neighbours, but there are people living in my street who are among the most pompous, selfish, arrogant and unpleasant people it has ever been my misfortune to come across. There are "sides" - in other words if you speak to some people, you can't speak to others. If you park outside certain people's houses you return to your car to find a "don't do it again" note on your car. One guy was even claiming that "your registration details have been recorded". Truly, truly pathetic.
Take aesthetics and the criminality of much of the local youth out of the equation, and the council estate was actually a nicer place to live.
Cheers
DP
|
I don't like inconsiderate parking, including on pavements, but realistically many people have little option. Then it becomes a matter of being pragmatic and trying to minimise inconvenience to others - not too much on the pavement or in the road, and, if it helps, a yard or two one way or the other to allow easiest access to a driveway opposite. I think the police take this view too and won't necessarily ticket a car just for parking partly on the pavement.
The fact is most houses do not have two off road parking spaces where either car can be got out without moving the other; and many households need two or more cars. I'm sure the OP would much rather have a carriage drive and a stable yard, but not everybody does.
I have no axe to grind here - we are lucky enough to have all the off road parking we need.
In fact we have a neighbour who leaves a sign-written Transit sized van in the road every night - their mid-terrace has no drive as such, and the front garden has been paved to house their car. It doesn't do much for the picture postcard appearance of the conservation area, but it's modern life - the guy's just trying to get a living like the rest of us, and I can find other things to fret about.
The 'hooter' is out of order - I guess he could argue that there might be a pedestrian concealed by the van, but that doesn't require a blast of the horn - on a housing estate, just slow down.
The PCSO route sounds good to me - near Stoke Mandeville hospital the residents have managed to get them more or less persecuting nurses who have nowhere else to park but other people's residential streets, so I guess they might be on the lookout for something like this to justify their existence.
|
Several posters have commented on having houses with insufficient parking - myself, and many of my neighbours have this issue as we still have kids at home, who, years ago, would probably have long since left. So instead of 1-2 cars as 20 years ago when we moved in, most now have 4. As it happens we can fit 3 on the drive and one daughter uses a neighbours drive but others are not so fortunate.
Our road is fairly wide, but some on some the narrower roads people did park almost completely blocking the pavements - however that's been fixed by someone keying cars that are parked in such a way. For some reason a couple of the roads have become inhabited by multiple works vans - I know it is the way many people work these days but of course there was never any thought when the estate was designed that this would happen and it really doesn't do anything for the look of the area.
|
|
There was some "Beat the Credit Crunch" filler nonsense on a TV programme the other week. Renting driveway spaces was one of their many ideas. Now that's got a lot of pitfalls !
|
|
|
Just for clarification I believe that Construction and Use Regs prohibit horn use from 2330 to 0700 in built up areas except when another road user poses a danger, however I do agree that their behaviour is anti social, if there is no real need to sound the horn.
|
Polly, as above, have a word with the local bobby, but before you do just be careful of people in glass houses. I think it very ignorant of drivers of vans and cars that park on the kerb as you describe. I would like to bet it is a little more than the kerb and you are causing an obstruction and a danger to pedestrians.
Personally I would not like a van to be parked in my street and most deeds do not permit this. I would put up with it but can understand people who feel frustrated by it. I suppose their point is that if they wanted to look at a van all evening and weekend they would live on an industrial estate.
Edited by Pendlebury on 16/11/2008 at 12:09
|
The horn blowing sounds to me like idiot mentality, so whether the opcs's can do anything i do doubt but worth a try, we had a problem for years where i lived before about a mile from an itinerant camp, they would blow hooters when passing all the time, i could have done the same to them when returning from night shift circa 3.30am but that would bring me down to their level, not going there.
It sounds to me like he OP and their neighbours try their best to live and let live, the parking takes into account the passing of trucks, which means emergency services can get through, thats often not the case where idiotic people park cars opposite each other, usually on estates. But as so often in these things it only needs one plank to spoil life for all.
Unless the OP's van is making the footpath impassible, i can't really see anything wrong, i suppose they could pack their jobs in and go on the dole instead, that would mean i less van (unless of course their next door neighbour gets the job), silly i know, but most of us have to work and vans etc are part and parcel of life.
OP, think hard, does the van make it difficult for this hornblower or any of his mates families to walk past with shopping/pushchairs or the like.
And i do agree with there being a bit of chicanery on some estates, keeps the speed of some down.
|
|
and provide excellent hiding places for little people on bikes/scooters.
|
|
Might be a silly question but is there really a problem in putting the van on the drive and the car on the road ? Possibly the compromise needed ? If it's a case of getting kids into the car safely they can be attended to from kerbside can't they ?
|
Some people near us started a business, and bought a Sherpa Luton van. They had plenty of drive-space, but chose to park it on the pavement/street, leaving less than 2' of space between the van and their 6' beech hedge. I asked them to move it, as I could not walk past on the pavement, and got an earfull from her (he was silent..)
When I got home I range the police non-emergency number, and explained the situation. They said they'd have a word, and clearly they did, as it's been on their drive since. In the case of the OP, it may be that the kerb is large enough to allow someone to pass even when the van is parked as described, but it's pretty irritating to have to move into the road to get past a vehicle that's hogging the footway.
|
putting the van on the drive and the car on the road ?
As I suggested earlier... safer for all concerned I think...
Edited by b308 on 16/11/2008 at 14:44
|
|
|
|
|
|
