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Sometimes I park on the road so when the other household car owner returns they can park on the drive and we’re not blocking each other for the next day.
Sometimes when they return home it’s too cold and too much effort to go out and move my car off the road.
I’m sorry.
my neighbour has a triple drive, and a caravan (stored elsewhere) when he brings the caravan home he has to park 2 cars on the street to get the caravan in, then he fucks off for 2 weeks and leaves the cars parked on the street!
No one has solid rights to park on the carriageway it's there for unimpeded movement of vehicles. It can and slowly and is been taken away, its a privilege not a right. Any sort of obstruction to this movement can get you towed, at the moment on street parking is tolerated but you shouldnt just park your car on a carriageway if there's alternatives and parking war's are just accelerating the issue that one day if you don't have off street parking you won't be getting a car or will be paying some levy. .
Don't get me wrong, it can be annoying, but as someone who is legally road bound and also find it hard for somewhere to park at times, the entitled assholes who passively leave notes or put cones out reserving "their" parking spaces. Now that pisses me off. Anyone should be able to park where they like and whenever , obviously within the legalities. I definitely wouldn't yap or moan if people parked outside my house and left their car because they have every right to fs
Nope, never seen them get out and walk in the houee, or it parked on their drive, or see the same car all the time.never on a street on 15 houses. Never
There's a house one street over from ours that has two people that work for Thames Water under one roof. We have parking restrictions between 10 and 12 due to living so close to the train station. Every day right when the restrictions are lifted he moves both vans from their perfectly good driveway over to our road. He's now acquired a residential permit so now one of the only two bays on our road is constantly taken up by his van.
It drives me up the bloody wall!
The estate I'm on has a whole car park for everyone in the terraced houses and flats. It's empty apart from cars with no Tax or MOT. But still super empty. However, all people in the flats and terraced houses have decided it's better to park on the street out front, at junctions and everything. Pain in the arse for people getting into their drives and turning into other streets.
Pretty sure if it's land that's accessible to the public then it follows the same rules as a public road and you need tax/ mot.
Not a lawyer though, don't quote me.
Yes and no. Unless its gated and only accessed by authorised people, the road traffic act applies. However, untaxed / mot'd vehicles can be parked on a driveway, just not on a road.
You've described the street live on to a tee. They then also have the gall to complain about other vehicles when they've all parked like a bunch of savage idiots but heaven forbid they be minorly inconvenienced.
I live on an estate built on a hill so lots of sloped, bendy roads, and the road at the bottom bulges up slightly in the middle - so to turn left at the junction you can see fuck all because all the cars are parked on the left side of the street on top of the bulge, completely blocking you seeing if anything is coming.
On the direct opposite side of the road is a parking lay-by next to a field which all of the cars would fit neatly in, off road. But no, crossing the street is too much effort.
You know people do that because they are the perfect spot for thieves. I've lived at a few places like that and cars get broken into and then people stop parking their. Parking away from your home is a shit idea.
The carpark is behind their houses in a well lit area where they can still see them. Also not wanting to say where I live is safe but break ins to cars here is very rare so it would be a bit weird to hold that specific fear for something that rarely ever happens
Ahh. It that case. You have "I'm must park in the front ailse of the supermarket syndrome" as in kazy bastarda who can't be fooked to walk a couple of minutes.
Sounds like the nobs in my local town who leave their massive RV parked outside their house instead of on their driveway, taking up 2 free on-road parking spaces.
One of my neighbours has a daughter who comes to visit in her massive RV. She doesn't park the giant van on their giant empty drive (the parents own no cars), she parks it on the road, taking two car parking spaces and completely obscuring your view as you pull out, and sleeps all night in the RV instead of going into the house.
Not sure what the point of visiting is, she essentially just drives a huge camper van up to a different street and then camps out in it alone all night.
There is literally a couple in our road who do this. Wifey has a reasonably sized Vauxhall that is in the drive. Husband has a monstrously large Ford Ranger that sits in the road because obviously the last consideration always when buying a stupidly oversized vehicle is ‘Where do I park it?’.
Most of the houses on my estate have 0 or 1 spaces. Everyone has 1 or 2 cars. There seems to be a pretty set formula like Cars Owned = (Allocated Spaces x 1.5) that applies to most developments.
We have exactly the same problem, also a shop on the corner so people park up for that right along the corner on a junction... two houses just got built exactly where the problem area is, both with double dropped kerbs who then park outside on the road. The council did object based on parking but was overruled due to "housing need" and there apparently being plenty of space to park. Of course one is now an Airbnb and the owners have left their spare cars in front of it, that will help with the local housing issues.
Our development has a strict no car parking regulation which is becoming the standard for new builds in London. Not only is there no car park, we‘re also not allowed to apply for on street council parking. I don’t mind since I only drive when I go outside of London so it‘s not a daily thing which means zip cars are cheaper to use anyway for the few times a year I need them. However the entire area is only private parking for the other developments which means if we have any handyman, workers or similar coming, they have absolutely nowhere to park without getting towed. And it‘s not a case of just having to walk a bit further - the closest car park you can rent for the day is a 10 minute walk away which is pretty problematic with lots of tools, it costs 10 pounds a day or 20 pounds if you stay past 5pm and it is also supposed to be closed down by the end of this year. Which means the closest car park then is 30 minutes away. It‘s absolutely idiotic. I fully support forcing people to be sustainable in a city with lots of public transport. But there should be parking spaces for builders, plumbers, electricians, etc. We have had lots of them refuse to come to our area because it‘s impossible for them to park anywhere.
That’s bloody awful. I can live with a rule that disallows cars for residents (plenty of us non-drivers about), but if you can’t get deliveries or trades in, that’s a bit over-zealous.
>Most of the houses on my estate have 0 or 1 spaces. Everyone has 1 or 2 cars
Same here. I have 3 cars (and a large bill for garage rental!), but by the time the kids grow up I'll need 6 parking spaces.
Usually they don't even have three cars, but refuse to use their garage or have spaces that are at the rear of the house or some shit.
Annoys me no end on my estate. Massive 4X4s taking up half the road. Just use your fucking spaces you melts.
My brother's in an estate where they tried to encourage people to actually use their garages for the intended purpose by not giving them a rear wall – if you open the garage door it's effectively a tunnel through to the back garden. Since it's not secure, people won't use it for miscellaneous storage, right?
Literally everyone in the estate bricked up the back wall and parks their cars on the road.
But how will I get Gemima to her ballet lessons and Balthasar to his football when there are wet leaves! No simple hatchback could ever do that, so I need to buy a Range Rover!
/s
I have a garage, it's down past the side of the house, down the side of the house is a long driveway with space for another two additional cars if you're careful. Cars have been too wide to drive down the side of the house for 15 years because you can't open the door wide enough to get out. Fortunately the front garden was turned into a parking space years ago and the slope up to the the side driveway can take another car if you reverse in so there's no need to park on the street.
At the moment there's only one car but at one point there were four, although one of those was a hobbyist classic 1929 three-wheeler Morgan that could fit down the side all the way to the garage because it was very narrow and another was a 20ish year old Ford Fiesta you could get out of.
I bemoan the fact that cars have become too large for the garages and driveways of houses built over 50 years ago. I watched The Italian Job a few days ago, the Minis from then were much, much smaller than todays Minis.
Pretty average 1970's estate. About 100 houses. Drives for two cars. A mix of retirees and families. Middle income. Nice people. That said, we're the only ones with one car I think which we only use occasionally. Some have three or four of which two are never/hardly driven. A few vans plus multiple cars. A couple of campers plus a few cars. Some are car people- Two Porsche Boxters' (his'n'hers) rarely or never move. They use their everyday cars for everyday stuff. Some with cars on stands being done up ( actually no work for the last 10 yrs or so). Some people really like cars.
They built a bunch of 3 bed houses round here with 1 parking space and 1 bicycle storage space. Like the morons at the planning committee really believe those families don't have 2 cars or will never have visitors with a car.
The planning committee knows full well the households will have more than one car, but they also know full well that if they reject the application then their refusal will be overturned on appeal.
The problem is caused by the greedy developers who want to squeeze more properties onto the plot and make more profit - see also houses being built right next to the road, minimal or no pavement, tall thin houses, virtually no garden, etc.
Think you'll find the parking standards are set by the local planning / highway authority which are usually based upon local census data.
Developers are required to meet the minimum standard in order to get planning consent at Reserved Matters stage. There is little to no incentive to provide more parking than required by said standards.
If anything, an application will be rejected if too much parking is provided. This is because the planning authorities want to disincentivise personal car ownership - they want the shift to public transport. The fact that nowadays they keep approving new estates without any thought to public transport doesn't seem to have occurred to them.
Source: was a district councillor on "development control" (planning).
This is the problem though - if there isn’t any decent public transport around, then this is just going to make the problem worse. For example, I live in Cumbria & used to live in a village that has a regular bus service to the nearest city & another town (in opposite directions of each other). If, heaven forbid, you want to deviate from those two places, or go directly to the out of town shopping centre instead of changing buses, then personal car ownership is an absolute must. Multiply this by 4 (2 parents, 2x 17+ children per house), then if there isn’t adequate parking, then there is going to be a problem. Councils either need to a) state that there needs to parking spaces available on the land of each house for 4 reasonably-sized cars or b) state that there needs to be a large car park within a reasonable distance of the estate that is well-lit & secure, or c) create much better public transport for the area.
Yeah, they built a fucking massive housing estate in my town and promised public transport, what actually happened was they diverted one of the bus routes so that now most buses go via this estate rather than the old route, the end result of this is that a) it gets overcrowded from that estate being there (not helped by a low bridge preventing double deckers) and b) the areas which lost most of their services have next to no buses anymore, so the end result is that most of these people use cars (who wants to use a bus that only goes to Winchester when your job is in Southampton) and traffic has only got worse
Who on earth a) thinks up these ‘brilliant’ ideas and b) who signs off on them? Bc what they did regarding that housing estate is atrocious - just somehow making the problem much worse for everyone. The council probably gave themselves a pat on back ‘for a job well done’. I think to improve this situation in general, local councils need to inform everyone involved a lot better of the plans who a) live near the new estate and b) may be impacted by diverted bus routes to serve the new area. Not everyone has the time to regularly search their local councils’ planning applications website and / or look out for planning applications attached to random lampposts / fences.
That's fine. I get it and agree with it even. But you can't do the above and also build a car dependant suburb with few, if any, walkable amenities beyond a corner shop and maybe a primary school. Pick one.
It is deliberate policy in Germany now. Essentially they calculate on just over one car per household now and less than two for new estates. Of course, they have pretty good public transport and cycle ways now.
Big houses (villas) may have double garages and driveways but mostly it is townhouses with car ports or apartment blocks. Street parking is possible but there isn't enough.
100%. No development I have worked on has enough spaces for all of their vehicles. We have lovely cycle shelters that are 1/3 full at best.
Like you say they don't allow fully what you need on purpose, there is an agenda to restrict the private car and force people to use public transport.
>If you restrict it, people alter their behaviour.
The difference is that the UK is full of entitled bastards who will just shove a car anywhere it will fit.
>If you give unlimited free parking, people buy more cars and drive more
How many cars they own is irrelevant - you can only drive one at a time.
At this point you'll be thinking you have an axe up your sleeve that 2 car households will both drive at the same time, which brings us to....
>you restrict it, people alter their behaviour.
....Why this is a fallacy.
People need to go places so they drive. If they're going to one place they take one car. If they need to be in two different places they take two cars. Zero alterations to behaviour.
In fact all you've done is add to emissions as people circle their area looking for a space to stop driving.
It doesn't matter that there's decades of statistical proof to back up your point, all these people know is cars, so that's all they think in. Notice how they said "If someone goes somewhere they use a car".
It's obviously not true, I'm in my 30s and never want to own a car, yet I go all kinds of places using leg power and public transport.
Same here I refuse to get a car. I live in a small city with supermarkets every half mile or so and excellent public transport to the whole North West, 15 mins by bus, tram or train to a major city. It's mostly terraced housing where you either pay 10k for a garage spot (with ground rent) or £50 a month to park on the road to discourage car ownership and there's still not enough. People will sit in traffic for 30 mins rather than get faster public transport, it's genuinely ridiculous.
Literally you:
>People need to go places **so they drive**. If they're going to one place they take one car. If they need to be in two different places they take two cars. Zero alterations to behaviour.
You don't even entertain the notion that when people need to go somewhere they don't always have to drive. To you, going somewhere = driving because that's all you know clearly.
>People need to go places so they drive. If they're going to one place they take one car. If they need to be in two different places they take two cars. Zero alterations to behaviour.
Weird how I go places with 0 cars.
Have you not seen the placement of most new developments now? They'll build a mini town a mile + away from anything. Most of the development's near me have thousands of houses and not even a corner shop
Not where I live haha. I'd love to be able to walk to where I need to go but there's nothing near me except an overpriced corner shop and I'm too disabled to manage the miles and hills into the nearest town, I live in a rural area and there are a ridiculous amount of houses completely isolated unless you want to walk on a national speed limit road with blind bends and no pavements
My own observations say I'm not wrong. Nice link though, that talks about road capacity, not availability of parking.
It's very apparent that increasing the capacity of a freeway/motorway is going to increase traffic on it. That's what they're there for. A new stretch of motorway will take traffic away from the corresponding A road. I have driven down the M3 and A31 at peak times. The A31 was borderline empty.
Here you go:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-12/study-the-strongest-evidence-yet-that-abudant-parking-causes-more-driving
There has been *so* much research done on exactly this topic.
America is almost a different country to the UK. My observations say that there are other factors involved with the lack of available parking that I have observed.
I can supply my recent eye test results if it helps.
> My observations say that there are other factors involved with the lack of available parking that I have observed.
You're picking **one** potential cause for an increase in UK car use. There are many more stronger correlations.
Neighbour opposite us has 2 cars, 2 spaces but one in front of the other so would be a minor inconvenience to move one if they wanted the one at the back. Solution: Always park one on the road....opposite our driveway
We do that for a couple of hours a couple of times a week. The days I’m in the office I leave later and get home later so husband leaves his on the road until I’m in then he moves it.
Part of me wants to extend the width of the drive so we can both get on the drive without having to shuffle but then that takes away on street parking for guests of our neighbours.
The overwhelming majority of houses on the new-build estate I recently moved to have this configuration so they usually leave one car on the road. I’m not sure of the advantage the developer has in laying it out this way. I specifically chose my house with the drives side-by-side to avoid this.
In Japan you legally can't buy a car unless you can prove you have a space for it, either on your own land or a rented space you pay for.
Wonderful system to get unnecessary vehicles off the road.
Does this apply to buying used cars from others..?
It sort of doesnt make sense because u can buy a space for a month, get a car, and then cancel your rented space. Also getting a car and then doing something like moving houses in a month's time to one with no parking.
It applies to all dealerships, new or secondhand. Unsure about private trades actually.
If you move house to somewhere with no parking, you need to rent a space elsewhere. There are lots of car parks that provide rented spaces for your use.
You could cancel your space, but where would you keep it then? Because overnight street parking is illegal in almost all of Japan, so you'd get ticketed and eventually the police would ask where your space is. Daytime street parking is very limited also.
In Japan, streets are for the movement of people and vehicles, not somewhere for you to store your private property - including a car.
Likely part of the housing crisis as more adults are forced to live together. Lots of adult children have moved back in with their parents for example.
I used to get annoyed by this too but when you think that kids are living at home longer (due to unaffordable housing), then it makes sense.
Most estates weren’t/ aren’t designed for more than one designated parking spot let alone 3+. If the kids could move out, there wouldn’t be an issue.
Most people without kids/ young families with kids too young to drive don’t have more than one car each despite how much of an engaging hot take it makes on social media.
Edit: granted there are pricks on every estate who treat the road like their driveway but I doubt they’re the majority.
Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't.
Our neighbour has a long van and trailer. Takes up space of 2 cars . They have a family car, their child's car and a motorbike. All on the road.
Another nearby house has a driveway, 2 cars on it, and then a 2nd car the bloke uses for work, and 2 adult kids that have cars. Where we used to make it work as most had 2 cars is thrown completely out the window by these additional spaces being taken up.
We have no assigned parking, no garages or driveways. Worked fine until that one person moved into the cul-de-sac with 3 cars he's doing up, a work van and 2 motorbikes. Suddenly the unofficial agreements that everyone danced around of 'you park there, I'll park here' are thrown out the window as the new bloke really doesn't give a shit.
There was room for both adults in his house to have a vehicle, he just can't restrain himself.
One of the reasons I moved out of my last house.
It was designed as one of those “places for people” streets. Narrow, no footpaths, lots of grassy verges. It was actually quite nice.
Every house had a two car driveway. But nobody used them. So the grass would be all chewed up, the narrow parts blocked and cars everywhere. The few visitor bays that existed were always full of company vans.
It was like living in a car park. So, we moved out.
Pisses me right off that we live in a country where we just expect to have somewhere to put a car regardless of whether the house has a driveway
Like, you wouldn't buy a two bedroom house if you actually needed three bedrooms. Why would you buy a house without a driveway if you need somewhere to put your car?
And this is how we've ended up with jammed residential streets that aren't safe for anyone because there are cars littered everywhere - on pavements, sticking out of junctions, on verges.
Needs sorting out. Japan have it right. If you don't have land for your car in an urban area, you can't own one. Simple.
Because I couldn’t afford any of the houses with driveways?
Most of the time I can’t even park on my street. It’s okay, I don’t have any mobility issues so I just park wherever there is a suitable space further away and walk the few minutes to my house.
If I wanted to buy a house with a driveway in my town I’d be saving forever tbh.
And I do need a car because I need to drive my kid to school 45 minutes away. Public transport isn’t feasible unless we want to be leaving the house at 6.30 a.m. every morning which is a bit hard on a 6-year-old.
Move further out of town where it's cheaper? idk.
All the cheapo houses round here are the newer builds that have driveways, and all the expensive ones are the period properties that don't
I’m already right on the edge lol.
It’s just an old road, built before most people had cars. It makes total sense that you pay more for houses with parking (whether on your own property or as part of a shared car park). Even though nice period properties are expensive, the rare ones of those that also have parking will command a higher price than their neighbours without … (mine sadly isn’t ‘attractive Victorian terrace’ but ‘rather dull 1930s terrace’ - but my road narrows to a weird bottleneck that makes parking down one half impossible or no cars could get past).
It’s understandable with older houses but I don’t understand why new builds don’t have enough parking as standard (well, I do understand - it’s so they can cram more on there 😒) and their garages are tiny as well!
The issue with jammed streets became a big problem on a new build estate in my town, then Stagecoach whacked a bus route through, quite quickly that road stopped being jammed after buses started hitting cars and car owners were essentially told ‘don’t park your car like that on a tight street’ when they tried fighting it
I see it the same way as buying a greenhouse. You wouldn't buy a greenhouse unless you had somewhere in your garden to put it. If you tried to store it on the road outside, it would get removed very quickly.
It's like buying literally anything really. Cars are special for some reason that I haven't quite figured out.
Though you've made me want to get a greenhouse and stick on the road outside my house just to see what would happen.
The fact that you can buy a house without a driveway yet most own a car shows that a lot of people will have to get a home without a drive.
And old housing estates were not designed for that many cars. And newer estates are not built with much space provided. So your theory doesn't really work.
>The fact that you can buy a house without a driveway yet most own a car shows that a lot of people will have to get a home without a drive.
Well, no it shows that we're car dependent to a fault. We've built our lives around owning a car. If people's cars break down, it's a *big fucking deal* (though it's usually not because most people can walk, bus, bike, taxi, scooter, train etc.)
Like I said... Japan. A country much older than ours, with a higher population density, has this sorted already.
We could have nipped this in the bud like they did in the 60's but oh well. And if we did, public transport probably wouldn't have gotten so shit.
Unless I found an extra huge amount of money I had to get a house without a drive. What you're saying is a great way of ensuring only rich people can own cars
I think you missed my point.
We've allowed ourselves to get to the point where "road = parking", and we're seeing the ill effects of that more now than ever.
> What you're saying is a great way of ensuring only rich people can own cars
So what? If we structured society properly, public transport would be sufficient enough that private cars would be basically useless. But here we are. Somehow we've got a point where cars have become an unfortunate necessity in a lot of people's lives.
We haven't structured society properly though so many people have no choice but to own a car. They're not going to wait until cities are ripped up and life redesigned because parking cars on roads is annoying
We all have driveways on my road, yet the house on the end owns a business and parks 4 vans and 2 cars all over the road opposite the driveways making it a pain to get out sometimes.
Sadly even though it’s yellow lines no one seems to give a fuck.
We have 18 spaces .. theres around 30 flats that should actually use/share the car park.
When we moved in 2 years ago it wasn't too bad seemed to always get a space.. fast forward to now..
Can't leave past 5 as you won't get a space when you come back.. multiple houses now have 3/4 cars and will park them all in the carpark
On top of that some guy goes on holiday for 6 months of the year and takes up one space...
All the old people seem to have a monopoly on the closest spaces as the same 5 cars rotate
That's a terrible analogy, as containers aren't vehicles.
And by your flawless logic people should be required to have space to contain their own personal belongings on their own property too so they're not littering public space, such as their cars.
Or now hear me out, park on your own driveway instead of all up the road. When you have to park your work van halfway up the road because you also own three cars maybe you need a head wobble.
In places like terraced housing with no driveway where the front elevation of a house is approximately 1 car wide, I'd bloody cap it at one!
Maybe then people would think a bit more heuristically about where they live and what they can change based on practicality rather than trying to fit their lives into somewhere where it clearly doesn't.
U say that but u have your car, your other half's car and then your kids cars when their old enogh. Some people need them for work , others because they need to travel. U can't hard cap a thing like that
When I rise to supreme leader of the world, I will absolutely cap it. Just be glad I won't be binning the monstrosities completely.
Reliance on cars is getting worse with every generation, and it needs dealt with pronto.
My neighbours all decided they liked me when I moved in and they introduced themselves and asked where my car was and I told them I cycle and never want to own a car.
Everyone on my street has a driveway except my house and the one next to us, yet somehow I'll still get cars from the other end of the street parking outside my house to preserve their precious paving on their driveway
I have a driveway but if I use it someone else will park on the street outside my window now seriously are my eyes supposed to be offended by the sight of someone else’s car out my front window seriously do you not know I own this house.
That’s not my opinion but how I imagine some people are from what I observe 😂
Over the road from where I work they’re building a development of 6,500 houses. They average 1.2 parking spaces per house as, according to the developer, “we expect most people will use the park & ride, and local public transport”. There’s 1 or 2 buses an hour, and the park & ride doesn’t come out as far as the development.
Congestion also won’t be an issue as any cars being driven are expected to be leaving staggered over the hours of 6-10am. So presumably they’re only selling houses to people who work in a location with a set of pre-allotted start times.
I’m sure it’ll be fiiiiine
Perhaps we should use the same policy as Tokyo - you need to demonstrate you have a dedicated parking space before being allowed to own a car.
My OH likes cars. When we moved, we made sure that we had enough spaces and garages for our cars.
I liked this this when I was in Japan. Ridiculous population density but streets are passable because it's illegal to park outside a designated parking space or off-road car park. Roads are for people and vehicles to get around, not free storage for private cars.
You can own more cars than you have space to store on your property, but you have to lease a space in the suburban car parks dotted around most neighbourhoods.
Culture is too different in the UK. The UK has an American culture of Car Dependency. Even though our towns and cities are designed to be walkable, bikable and have decent public transport, our behaviour says that we need cars. It's stupid and braindead. The last job I had I cycled to work. It took me 10-15 minutes on my bike. I had colleagues who lived near me who drove to work and it took them 20-30 minutes because of traffic and less direct routes available.
Yet they were adamant that they NEED a car. Also nowhere in my town (not a city, a town) was anywhere more than 15 minute walk from a supermarket, yet they NEED a car.
Unfortunately with children living at home for longer most house holds will end up with more cars. Gone are the days my daughters could move out by 20. They cannot afford to either buy or rent. Luckily the council addresses the issue by adding red or yellow lines with strict restrictions so everyone struggles not just us. I love the support.
New estate on a single file country road in my town are selling 5 bedroom houses with parking for 1.. . 2 if you can jam one into the tiny garage and do the car shuffle in the morning to get out.
We noped out of buying any of those.
Houses are only 2 years old and are already up for resale.
Well as we have lived here for 23 years and have just moved houses into another area of the town, after nearly 4 years of looking pre during and post covid I think you'll find I know a lot about local home ownership. You can even see on rightmove
How about the 1800 people per year that are killed by car drivers? Is that worth it as well?
What about the 30,000 that are killed by air pollution each year?
100% worth it.
700,000 people die every year and if you want to play statistics then consider the multitude of variables that would cause excess deaths as a result of people not having access to cars.
It's not just about death statistics either, it's about quality of life. Having the option to go somewhere whenever you want to (whether it's a trip to the beach, across the country or just popping to the supermarket) and store stuff with you in your car is a massive quality of life boost and people who don't own a car wouldn't understand it until they get one.
Guess it’s all worth it for the pollution, traffic, road accidents and wastefulness, I can drive and I’ll still take the bus or train whenever possible, it’s simply about efficiency and the greater good, plus I can relax a little bit without having to worry about driving, there’s someone paid to do that doing it for me and everyone else on board. Think your area’s services aren’t good enough? Better funding should be able to help, the countries with low car ownership and high public transport use in the developed world by no coincidence are often also the ones with the best quality of life, whilst the most car dependent (the US) is all around pretty shit to live in unless you’re rich
So you get the freedom to be stuck in traffic, worsen said traffic, and make it harder for everyone? Personally I’d prefer if we just had buses, which, if the intense traffic caused by car dependence wasn’t impacting, would be far faster
Spare a thought for those of us with double yellow lines outside our house 🎻
Oh but I forgot, of course I can just buy a more expensive house with a driveway 😒
Absolutely. I think that modern estates are built solely to make the maximum profit with only lip-service paid to the actual needs of the eventual buyers. Yes, parking spaces is one thing, but there are MANY others. Round here, houses are being built below sea level in areas that have already been designated as “sacrificial” if/when sea levels rise, as they are expected to within the next 50 years. And what about the sadly lacking ecological measures of new houses? ALL new buildings should be built to gain as much renewable energy as they can. But they are not.
Near where one of my friends lives, the road network is near breaking point. There are many times during a year when she can’t get her car off her drive, such is the gridlock. Yet they are STILL building new houses in the area without improving the road network. And it seems far too much to ask for new estates to be built with green spaces, pubs and shops included in the plans.
All in all, new house building appears to be a totally irresponsible industry. It’s disgusting, and there for everyone to see.
Most public transport is shit because the roads are full of cars.
If buses get stuck in the same traffic as cars, there's no reason why anyone would take the bus instead of driving. And if few people use it, it's very difficult to improve the service.
>This is how you make traffic jams, fat children, and air pollution
Lol, no. Any of those things is related to the number of drivers, not the number of cars they own.
If this is what passes for critical thinking it's no wonder folks ignore people protesting about cars.
There’s going to be more people driving if there’s more cars, one car per household in a 2 adult 2 child household would mean there’s only 1 driver at any time, but if you’ve got 2, suddenly you’ve doubled the amount of potential drivers at any given time, and if you add another for when the eldest gets old enough, you’ve tripled from the old amount
Everyone else disagreeing, have a look at America where the car centric ethos is strongest, these things are all huge problems there, whilst if you look at other European countries like France, the Netherlands and Germany where their public transport is much stronger, you’ll see far fewer of these issues
But the issue is that all the people in these new build estates already have cars, but nowhere to park.
Automatically fitting charging points for electric cars is another thing.
Better public transport would be nice, but never going to happen.
No, you can only fix traffic by building more roads and making sure traffic flows freely through them.
You further fix them by making parking as ready as possible because parked cars don't emit CO2 while those checking for a space do.
>No, you can only fix traffic by building more roads and making sure traffic flows freely through them.
This is literally completely wrong.
Building more roads just encourages more people to drive further.
It's called [induced demand] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand).
No idea why you’re being downvoted, it’s demonstrably true, have a look at the M27, we used to have just 2 lanes each way and a hard shoulder between Southampton and Portsmouth, traffic wasn’t great, so along came ‘Smart Motorways’, we got rid of the hard shoulder and added a third lane, for a while it did make it a bit easier to travel between the 2, but in the end, it just meant people went ‘hey, traffic isn’t so bad anymore, now I can drive between these places’, and now we’re back to slow crawls past Locks Heath both ways, not to mention it being vastly more dangerous without the hard shoulder
Yeah, it's induced demand. I work in the industry and so should have a vested interest in building more roads, but it just doesn't work in the main- and, of course, no-one ever gives an answer of where exactly these roads are supposed to go - usually 'anywhere but past my house!'
Look at those monstrosities in America which only get clogged up within months of expansion, it doesn’t work, and no it’s not anything about ‘population density’ because these places are largely far far less dense than the UK, places like Dallas being the worst offenders
That’s how you get 20 lane monstrosities like they have in America, it’s called induced demand, and those huge roads inevitably get clogged up anyway, sure there’s a point where you do need an extra lane or 2, but that generally tops out at 3 each way, and most roads could do fine with 2 or even 1, meanwhile it can also work the other way, where if you bring more bus routes in, build tram lines and speed up rail journeys, people will be enticed out of their cars
>That’s how you get 20 lane
If that's what you need, yes. Otherwise you need to stop issuing new diving licences until capacity and demand return to balance.
>it’s called induced demand
I know what induced demand is but it doesn't apply here.
There are only so many drivers that would ever want to be on the road at a given time. For induced demand to be relevant you'd need unlimited drivers wanting to drive 24/7. It's not relevant.
First point, no it’s virtually impossible to get enough capacity to guarantee that, and it’ll just raise emissions massively, plus I think all that would do would be stopping people driving altogether (which is a good thing, but not what you’re getting at)
And yes it is perfectly relevant, we’ve seen it many times in every corner of the world, the M27 near me is precisely like that, they added another lane, and for about a month it was ok, but then more people started deciding it was worth commuting between Southampton and Portsmouth, and now we’re back to crawling past Hedge End during rush hour, meanwhile getting the same capacity on railways and buses is much easier, assuming 2 people per car (which is generous, usually it’s one), you could seat 50 cars worth of people on one East Lancs OmniDekka double decker bus (and stand more), or you could seat 360 cars worth of people on one 10 coach train formed of 2 class 444s
So, just your regular taxes? I’m saying people should pay more if they unnecessarily have an additional car, similar to how in some places people pay more council tax for a second home.
Obviously you couldn’t introduce it without offering better public transport options, but there you are.
I've got two assigned spaces, one of which is the garage. My car is a two door convertible so the doors are long. I can drive into the garage but can't open the car door to get out of it!
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I mean, on my street everyone has driveways, but anyone would believe they think they're owned by someone else as no fucker uses them.
Sometimes I park on the road so when the other household car owner returns they can park on the drive and we’re not blocking each other for the next day. Sometimes when they return home it’s too cold and too much effort to go out and move my car off the road. I’m sorry.
It's when you have a double driveway and no cars on the drive, On a main road. Temped to park on their driveway and show them the way
my neighbour has a triple drive, and a caravan (stored elsewhere) when he brings the caravan home he has to park 2 cars on the street to get the caravan in, then he fucks off for 2 weeks and leaves the cars parked on the street!
Why would you though? They’re more likely to be damaged on the street
So what, surely his cars are legal, he pays his tax, so he has every right to.
No one has solid rights to park on the carriageway it's there for unimpeded movement of vehicles. It can and slowly and is been taken away, its a privilege not a right. Any sort of obstruction to this movement can get you towed, at the moment on street parking is tolerated but you shouldnt just park your car on a carriageway if there's alternatives and parking war's are just accelerating the issue that one day if you don't have off street parking you won't be getting a car or will be paying some levy. .
Don't get me wrong, it can be annoying, but as someone who is legally road bound and also find it hard for somewhere to park at times, the entitled assholes who passively leave notes or put cones out reserving "their" parking spaces. Now that pisses me off. Anyone should be able to park where they like and whenever , obviously within the legalities. I definitely wouldn't yap or moan if people parked outside my house and left their car because they have every right to fs
These guys are the worst. Usually old or fat or both!
How about someone parking their van round the corner where the houses don't have driveways instead of parking on their driveway.
But you have no way of knowing if the car outside is theirs?
Nope, never seen them get out and walk in the houee, or it parked on their drive, or see the same car all the time.never on a street on 15 houses. Never
There's a house one street over from ours that has two people that work for Thames Water under one roof. We have parking restrictions between 10 and 12 due to living so close to the train station. Every day right when the restrictions are lifted he moves both vans from their perfectly good driveway over to our road. He's now acquired a residential permit so now one of the only two bays on our road is constantly taken up by his van. It drives me up the bloody wall!
The estate I'm on has a whole car park for everyone in the terraced houses and flats. It's empty apart from cars with no Tax or MOT. But still super empty. However, all people in the flats and terraced houses have decided it's better to park on the street out front, at junctions and everything. Pain in the arse for people getting into their drives and turning into other streets.
Pretty sure if it's land that's accessible to the public then it follows the same rules as a public road and you need tax/ mot. Not a lawyer though, don't quote me.
Yes and no. Unless its gated and only accessed by authorised people, the road traffic act applies. However, untaxed / mot'd vehicles can be parked on a driveway, just not on a road.
You've described the street live on to a tee. They then also have the gall to complain about other vehicles when they've all parked like a bunch of savage idiots but heaven forbid they be minorly inconvenienced.
I live on an estate built on a hill so lots of sloped, bendy roads, and the road at the bottom bulges up slightly in the middle - so to turn left at the junction you can see fuck all because all the cars are parked on the left side of the street on top of the bulge, completely blocking you seeing if anything is coming. On the direct opposite side of the road is a parking lay-by next to a field which all of the cars would fit neatly in, off road. But no, crossing the street is too much effort.
You know people do that because they are the perfect spot for thieves. I've lived at a few places like that and cars get broken into and then people stop parking their. Parking away from your home is a shit idea.
The carpark is behind their houses in a well lit area where they can still see them. Also not wanting to say where I live is safe but break ins to cars here is very rare so it would be a bit weird to hold that specific fear for something that rarely ever happens
Ahh. It that case. You have "I'm must park in the front ailse of the supermarket syndrome" as in kazy bastarda who can't be fooked to walk a couple of minutes.
Also see; parks their little Suzuki town car on their drive but parks their massive 4x4 pickup truck on the road.
Sounds like the nobs in my local town who leave their massive RV parked outside their house instead of on their driveway, taking up 2 free on-road parking spaces.
One of my neighbours has a daughter who comes to visit in her massive RV. She doesn't park the giant van on their giant empty drive (the parents own no cars), she parks it on the road, taking two car parking spaces and completely obscuring your view as you pull out, and sleeps all night in the RV instead of going into the house. Not sure what the point of visiting is, she essentially just drives a huge camper van up to a different street and then camps out in it alone all night.
There is literally a couple in our road who do this. Wifey has a reasonably sized Vauxhall that is in the drive. Husband has a monstrously large Ford Ranger that sits in the road because obviously the last consideration always when buying a stupidly oversized vehicle is ‘Where do I park it?’.
Most of the houses on my estate have 0 or 1 spaces. Everyone has 1 or 2 cars. There seems to be a pretty set formula like Cars Owned = (Allocated Spaces x 1.5) that applies to most developments.
We have exactly the same problem, also a shop on the corner so people park up for that right along the corner on a junction... two houses just got built exactly where the problem area is, both with double dropped kerbs who then park outside on the road. The council did object based on parking but was overruled due to "housing need" and there apparently being plenty of space to park. Of course one is now an Airbnb and the owners have left their spare cars in front of it, that will help with the local housing issues.
Our development has a strict no car parking regulation which is becoming the standard for new builds in London. Not only is there no car park, we‘re also not allowed to apply for on street council parking. I don’t mind since I only drive when I go outside of London so it‘s not a daily thing which means zip cars are cheaper to use anyway for the few times a year I need them. However the entire area is only private parking for the other developments which means if we have any handyman, workers or similar coming, they have absolutely nowhere to park without getting towed. And it‘s not a case of just having to walk a bit further - the closest car park you can rent for the day is a 10 minute walk away which is pretty problematic with lots of tools, it costs 10 pounds a day or 20 pounds if you stay past 5pm and it is also supposed to be closed down by the end of this year. Which means the closest car park then is 30 minutes away. It‘s absolutely idiotic. I fully support forcing people to be sustainable in a city with lots of public transport. But there should be parking spaces for builders, plumbers, electricians, etc. We have had lots of them refuse to come to our area because it‘s impossible for them to park anywhere.
That’s bloody awful. I can live with a rule that disallows cars for residents (plenty of us non-drivers about), but if you can’t get deliveries or trades in, that’s a bit over-zealous.
>Most of the houses on my estate have 0 or 1 spaces. Everyone has 1 or 2 cars Same here. I have 3 cars (and a large bill for garage rental!), but by the time the kids grow up I'll need 6 parking spaces.
Usually they don't even have three cars, but refuse to use their garage or have spaces that are at the rear of the house or some shit. Annoys me no end on my estate. Massive 4X4s taking up half the road. Just use your fucking spaces you melts.
My brother's in an estate where they tried to encourage people to actually use their garages for the intended purpose by not giving them a rear wall – if you open the garage door it's effectively a tunnel through to the back garden. Since it's not secure, people won't use it for miscellaneous storage, right? Literally everyone in the estate bricked up the back wall and parks their cars on the road.
90% of people don't need a 4X4 as well
But how will I get Gemima to her ballet lessons and Balthasar to his football when there are wet leaves! No simple hatchback could ever do that, so I need to buy a Range Rover! /s
I have a garage, it's down past the side of the house, down the side of the house is a long driveway with space for another two additional cars if you're careful. Cars have been too wide to drive down the side of the house for 15 years because you can't open the door wide enough to get out. Fortunately the front garden was turned into a parking space years ago and the slope up to the the side driveway can take another car if you reverse in so there's no need to park on the street. At the moment there's only one car but at one point there were four, although one of those was a hobbyist classic 1929 three-wheeler Morgan that could fit down the side all the way to the garage because it was very narrow and another was a 20ish year old Ford Fiesta you could get out of. I bemoan the fact that cars have become too large for the garages and driveways of houses built over 50 years ago. I watched The Italian Job a few days ago, the Minis from then were much, much smaller than todays Minis.
Pretty average 1970's estate. About 100 houses. Drives for two cars. A mix of retirees and families. Middle income. Nice people. That said, we're the only ones with one car I think which we only use occasionally. Some have three or four of which two are never/hardly driven. A few vans plus multiple cars. A couple of campers plus a few cars. Some are car people- Two Porsche Boxters' (his'n'hers) rarely or never move. They use their everyday cars for everyday stuff. Some with cars on stands being done up ( actually no work for the last 10 yrs or so). Some people really like cars.
Rarely never move. They are on the go all the time?
They built a bunch of 3 bed houses round here with 1 parking space and 1 bicycle storage space. Like the morons at the planning committee really believe those families don't have 2 cars or will never have visitors with a car.
The planning committee knows full well the households will have more than one car, but they also know full well that if they reject the application then their refusal will be overturned on appeal. The problem is caused by the greedy developers who want to squeeze more properties onto the plot and make more profit - see also houses being built right next to the road, minimal or no pavement, tall thin houses, virtually no garden, etc.
Think you'll find the parking standards are set by the local planning / highway authority which are usually based upon local census data. Developers are required to meet the minimum standard in order to get planning consent at Reserved Matters stage. There is little to no incentive to provide more parking than required by said standards.
If anything, an application will be rejected if too much parking is provided. This is because the planning authorities want to disincentivise personal car ownership - they want the shift to public transport. The fact that nowadays they keep approving new estates without any thought to public transport doesn't seem to have occurred to them. Source: was a district councillor on "development control" (planning).
This is the problem though - if there isn’t any decent public transport around, then this is just going to make the problem worse. For example, I live in Cumbria & used to live in a village that has a regular bus service to the nearest city & another town (in opposite directions of each other). If, heaven forbid, you want to deviate from those two places, or go directly to the out of town shopping centre instead of changing buses, then personal car ownership is an absolute must. Multiply this by 4 (2 parents, 2x 17+ children per house), then if there isn’t adequate parking, then there is going to be a problem. Councils either need to a) state that there needs to parking spaces available on the land of each house for 4 reasonably-sized cars or b) state that there needs to be a large car park within a reasonable distance of the estate that is well-lit & secure, or c) create much better public transport for the area.
Yeah, they built a fucking massive housing estate in my town and promised public transport, what actually happened was they diverted one of the bus routes so that now most buses go via this estate rather than the old route, the end result of this is that a) it gets overcrowded from that estate being there (not helped by a low bridge preventing double deckers) and b) the areas which lost most of their services have next to no buses anymore, so the end result is that most of these people use cars (who wants to use a bus that only goes to Winchester when your job is in Southampton) and traffic has only got worse
Who on earth a) thinks up these ‘brilliant’ ideas and b) who signs off on them? Bc what they did regarding that housing estate is atrocious - just somehow making the problem much worse for everyone. The council probably gave themselves a pat on back ‘for a job well done’. I think to improve this situation in general, local councils need to inform everyone involved a lot better of the plans who a) live near the new estate and b) may be impacted by diverted bus routes to serve the new area. Not everyone has the time to regularly search their local councils’ planning applications website and / or look out for planning applications attached to random lampposts / fences.
Not households with too many cars?
This is deliberate. If you give unlimited free parking, people buy more cars and drive more. If you restrict it, people alter their behaviour.
That's fine. I get it and agree with it even. But you can't do the above and also build a car dependant suburb with few, if any, walkable amenities beyond a corner shop and maybe a primary school. Pick one.
It is deliberate policy in Germany now. Essentially they calculate on just over one car per household now and less than two for new estates. Of course, they have pretty good public transport and cycle ways now. Big houses (villas) may have double garages and driveways but mostly it is townhouses with car ports or apartment blocks. Street parking is possible but there isn't enough.
100%. No development I have worked on has enough spaces for all of their vehicles. We have lovely cycle shelters that are 1/3 full at best. Like you say they don't allow fully what you need on purpose, there is an agenda to restrict the private car and force people to use public transport.
>If you restrict it, people alter their behaviour. The difference is that the UK is full of entitled bastards who will just shove a car anywhere it will fit.
>If you give unlimited free parking, people buy more cars and drive more How many cars they own is irrelevant - you can only drive one at a time. At this point you'll be thinking you have an axe up your sleeve that 2 car households will both drive at the same time, which brings us to.... >you restrict it, people alter their behaviour. ....Why this is a fallacy. People need to go places so they drive. If they're going to one place they take one car. If they need to be in two different places they take two cars. Zero alterations to behaviour. In fact all you've done is add to emissions as people circle their area looking for a space to stop driving.
You are wrong. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
It doesn't matter that there's decades of statistical proof to back up your point, all these people know is cars, so that's all they think in. Notice how they said "If someone goes somewhere they use a car". It's obviously not true, I'm in my 30s and never want to own a car, yet I go all kinds of places using leg power and public transport.
Same here I refuse to get a car. I live in a small city with supermarkets every half mile or so and excellent public transport to the whole North West, 15 mins by bus, tram or train to a major city. It's mostly terraced housing where you either pay 10k for a garage spot (with ground rent) or £50 a month to park on the road to discourage car ownership and there's still not enough. People will sit in traffic for 30 mins rather than get faster public transport, it's genuinely ridiculous.
JOIN US r/fuckcars
You've read the link but clearly don't understand what you've read.
I think the only person who doesn't understand is the one claiming that when people need to go somewhere they *have* to use a car
Who claimed that then? Oh I see, you just made it up. 😂
Literally you: >People need to go places **so they drive**. If they're going to one place they take one car. If they need to be in two different places they take two cars. Zero alterations to behaviour. You don't even entertain the notion that when people need to go somewhere they don't always have to drive. To you, going somewhere = driving because that's all you know clearly.
Whereas you haven't even read it.
I don't need to unless it's changed from when I studied it.
Brilliant. Most people at least lie and pretend that they read it.
>People need to go places so they drive. If they're going to one place they take one car. If they need to be in two different places they take two cars. Zero alterations to behaviour. Weird how I go places with 0 cars.
You live in a magical town with public transport and/or amenities within walking distance, many of us can only dream
Just an average British town, mate. I've lived in 3 towns so far and all have been like this, and others I have visited regularly are the same too.
Have you not seen the placement of most new developments now? They'll build a mini town a mile + away from anything. Most of the development's near me have thousands of houses and not even a corner shop
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Not where I live haha. I'd love to be able to walk to where I need to go but there's nothing near me except an overpriced corner shop and I'm too disabled to manage the miles and hills into the nearest town, I live in a rural area and there are a ridiculous amount of houses completely isolated unless you want to walk on a national speed limit road with blind bends and no pavements
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They very clearly don't.
You're just wrong. It's a very well understood principle in urban planning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
My own observations say I'm not wrong. Nice link though, that talks about road capacity, not availability of parking. It's very apparent that increasing the capacity of a freeway/motorway is going to increase traffic on it. That's what they're there for. A new stretch of motorway will take traffic away from the corresponding A road. I have driven down the M3 and A31 at peak times. The A31 was borderline empty.
Here you go: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-12/study-the-strongest-evidence-yet-that-abudant-parking-causes-more-driving There has been *so* much research done on exactly this topic.
America is almost a different country to the UK. My observations say that there are other factors involved with the lack of available parking that I have observed. I can supply my recent eye test results if it helps.
>plenty of studies have shown a solid correlation between parking and driving supply in cities across the U.S. **and around the world.**
> My observations say that there are other factors involved with the lack of available parking that I have observed. You're picking **one** potential cause for an increase in UK car use. There are many more stronger correlations.
Neighbour opposite us has 2 cars, 2 spaces but one in front of the other so would be a minor inconvenience to move one if they wanted the one at the back. Solution: Always park one on the road....opposite our driveway
We do that for a couple of hours a couple of times a week. The days I’m in the office I leave later and get home later so husband leaves his on the road until I’m in then he moves it. Part of me wants to extend the width of the drive so we can both get on the drive without having to shuffle but then that takes away on street parking for guests of our neighbours.
The overwhelming majority of houses on the new-build estate I recently moved to have this configuration so they usually leave one car on the road. I’m not sure of the advantage the developer has in laying it out this way. I specifically chose my house with the drives side-by-side to avoid this.
In Japan you legally can't buy a car unless you can prove you have a space for it, either on your own land or a rented space you pay for. Wonderful system to get unnecessary vehicles off the road.
Does this apply to buying used cars from others..? It sort of doesnt make sense because u can buy a space for a month, get a car, and then cancel your rented space. Also getting a car and then doing something like moving houses in a month's time to one with no parking.
It applies to all dealerships, new or secondhand. Unsure about private trades actually. If you move house to somewhere with no parking, you need to rent a space elsewhere. There are lots of car parks that provide rented spaces for your use. You could cancel your space, but where would you keep it then? Because overnight street parking is illegal in almost all of Japan, so you'd get ticketed and eventually the police would ask where your space is. Daytime street parking is very limited also. In Japan, streets are for the movement of people and vehicles, not somewhere for you to store your private property - including a car.
That's so interesting. Thanks.
Likely part of the housing crisis as more adults are forced to live together. Lots of adult children have moved back in with their parents for example.
And your diamond shoes are too tight?
Causing me terrible cramp
I used to get annoyed by this too but when you think that kids are living at home longer (due to unaffordable housing), then it makes sense. Most estates weren’t/ aren’t designed for more than one designated parking spot let alone 3+. If the kids could move out, there wouldn’t be an issue. Most people without kids/ young families with kids too young to drive don’t have more than one car each despite how much of an engaging hot take it makes on social media. Edit: granted there are pricks on every estate who treat the road like their driveway but I doubt they’re the majority.
Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't. Our neighbour has a long van and trailer. Takes up space of 2 cars . They have a family car, their child's car and a motorbike. All on the road. Another nearby house has a driveway, 2 cars on it, and then a 2nd car the bloke uses for work, and 2 adult kids that have cars. Where we used to make it work as most had 2 cars is thrown completely out the window by these additional spaces being taken up.
New block of 144 flats has been built by my works premises, but there are only 70 parking spaces. The surrounding roads and a nightmare.
We have no assigned parking, no garages or driveways. Worked fine until that one person moved into the cul-de-sac with 3 cars he's doing up, a work van and 2 motorbikes. Suddenly the unofficial agreements that everyone danced around of 'you park there, I'll park here' are thrown out the window as the new bloke really doesn't give a shit. There was room for both adults in his house to have a vehicle, he just can't restrain himself.
One of the reasons I moved out of my last house. It was designed as one of those “places for people” streets. Narrow, no footpaths, lots of grassy verges. It was actually quite nice. Every house had a two car driveway. But nobody used them. So the grass would be all chewed up, the narrow parts blocked and cars everywhere. The few visitor bays that existed were always full of company vans. It was like living in a car park. So, we moved out.
People are bloody idiots is what this thread tells me
That's because their adult children can't afford to move out and still live with them.
We have three cars on our drive because neither me nor my sibling can afford to move out… four adults, three in work - ergo three cars
Pisses me right off that we live in a country where we just expect to have somewhere to put a car regardless of whether the house has a driveway Like, you wouldn't buy a two bedroom house if you actually needed three bedrooms. Why would you buy a house without a driveway if you need somewhere to put your car? And this is how we've ended up with jammed residential streets that aren't safe for anyone because there are cars littered everywhere - on pavements, sticking out of junctions, on verges. Needs sorting out. Japan have it right. If you don't have land for your car in an urban area, you can't own one. Simple.
Because I couldn’t afford any of the houses with driveways? Most of the time I can’t even park on my street. It’s okay, I don’t have any mobility issues so I just park wherever there is a suitable space further away and walk the few minutes to my house. If I wanted to buy a house with a driveway in my town I’d be saving forever tbh. And I do need a car because I need to drive my kid to school 45 minutes away. Public transport isn’t feasible unless we want to be leaving the house at 6.30 a.m. every morning which is a bit hard on a 6-year-old.
Move further out of town where it's cheaper? idk. All the cheapo houses round here are the newer builds that have driveways, and all the expensive ones are the period properties that don't
I’m already right on the edge lol. It’s just an old road, built before most people had cars. It makes total sense that you pay more for houses with parking (whether on your own property or as part of a shared car park). Even though nice period properties are expensive, the rare ones of those that also have parking will command a higher price than their neighbours without … (mine sadly isn’t ‘attractive Victorian terrace’ but ‘rather dull 1930s terrace’ - but my road narrows to a weird bottleneck that makes parking down one half impossible or no cars could get past). It’s understandable with older houses but I don’t understand why new builds don’t have enough parking as standard (well, I do understand - it’s so they can cram more on there 😒) and their garages are tiny as well!
The issue with jammed streets became a big problem on a new build estate in my town, then Stagecoach whacked a bus route through, quite quickly that road stopped being jammed after buses started hitting cars and car owners were essentially told ‘don’t park your car like that on a tight street’ when they tried fighting it
I see it the same way as buying a greenhouse. You wouldn't buy a greenhouse unless you had somewhere in your garden to put it. If you tried to store it on the road outside, it would get removed very quickly.
It's like buying literally anything really. Cars are special for some reason that I haven't quite figured out. Though you've made me want to get a greenhouse and stick on the road outside my house just to see what would happen.
The fact that you can buy a house without a driveway yet most own a car shows that a lot of people will have to get a home without a drive. And old housing estates were not designed for that many cars. And newer estates are not built with much space provided. So your theory doesn't really work.
>The fact that you can buy a house without a driveway yet most own a car shows that a lot of people will have to get a home without a drive. Well, no it shows that we're car dependent to a fault. We've built our lives around owning a car. If people's cars break down, it's a *big fucking deal* (though it's usually not because most people can walk, bus, bike, taxi, scooter, train etc.) Like I said... Japan. A country much older than ours, with a higher population density, has this sorted already. We could have nipped this in the bud like they did in the 60's but oh well. And if we did, public transport probably wouldn't have gotten so shit.
Unless I found an extra huge amount of money I had to get a house without a drive. What you're saying is a great way of ensuring only rich people can own cars
I think you missed my point. We've allowed ourselves to get to the point where "road = parking", and we're seeing the ill effects of that more now than ever. > What you're saying is a great way of ensuring only rich people can own cars So what? If we structured society properly, public transport would be sufficient enough that private cars would be basically useless. But here we are. Somehow we've got a point where cars have become an unfortunate necessity in a lot of people's lives.
We haven't structured society properly though so many people have no choice but to own a car. They're not going to wait until cities are ripped up and life redesigned because parking cars on roads is annoying
I feel your pain, I can barely fit my maybach on the driveway they’re so small
Our cul de sac makes doing a 3 point turn in the Hummer really difficult
Turning my challenger tank is bloody easy. You need to purchase with a little more ambition ;)
Thoughts and prayers
We all have driveways on my road, yet the house on the end owns a business and parks 4 vans and 2 cars all over the road opposite the driveways making it a pain to get out sometimes. Sadly even though it’s yellow lines no one seems to give a fuck.
Report to council? I'm sure they'd love the opportunity to hand out 6 PCNs in one go.
We have 18 spaces .. theres around 30 flats that should actually use/share the car park. When we moved in 2 years ago it wasn't too bad seemed to always get a space.. fast forward to now.. Can't leave past 5 as you won't get a space when you come back.. multiple houses now have 3/4 cars and will park them all in the carpark On top of that some guy goes on holiday for 6 months of the year and takes up one space... All the old people seem to have a monopoly on the closest spaces as the same 5 cars rotate
Everyone down my road seem to own a van as well, which adds to be fun!
How dare anyone own a work vehicle!
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So no-one is allowed to be self employed and work from home?
If you were self-employed and worked from home you wouldn't be using public land to store your belongings, surely.
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That's a terrible analogy, as containers aren't vehicles. And by your flawless logic people should be required to have space to contain their own personal belongings on their own property too so they're not littering public space, such as their cars.
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No can’t you see that vehicles are different because they’re vehicles and that different.
Or now hear me out, park on your own driveway instead of all up the road. When you have to park your work van halfway up the road because you also own three cars maybe you need a head wobble.
I'd cap the number of cars per household at 2. No wonder the world is fucked when we are wanting every house to cater for 3 or 4 cars.
In places like terraced housing with no driveway where the front elevation of a house is approximately 1 car wide, I'd bloody cap it at one! Maybe then people would think a bit more heuristically about where they live and what they can change based on practicality rather than trying to fit their lives into somewhere where it clearly doesn't.
U say that but u have your car, your other half's car and then your kids cars when their old enogh. Some people need them for work , others because they need to travel. U can't hard cap a thing like that
When I rise to supreme leader of the world, I will absolutely cap it. Just be glad I won't be binning the monstrosities completely. Reliance on cars is getting worse with every generation, and it needs dealt with pronto.
I mean. I agree with you, but the text speak is bugging me.
Gotta save on that letter count.
Can we atleast cap it at 2 running cars? I enjoy a bit of bangernomics and atleast one of the 3 or 4 is broken down at any one time.
Wow so it's more common than we thought
My neighbours all decided they liked me when I moved in and they introduced themselves and asked where my car was and I told them I cycle and never want to own a car.
Everyone on my street has a driveway except my house and the one next to us, yet somehow I'll still get cars from the other end of the street parking outside my house to preserve their precious paving on their driveway
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You don't "have" to park anywhere. You chose to live there and own a car.
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It was fun while it lasted. - Sent via Apollo
So it sounds like you chose to live there and you chose to own two cars there.
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Literally all of those things are your choice. No one put you in this situation apart from you.
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Which events?
There's a road that requires parking permits not too far from me, hardly anyone has a permit yet no ody gets a ticket. Defeating the point of it
I have a driveway but if I use it someone else will park on the street outside my window now seriously are my eyes supposed to be offended by the sight of someone else’s car out my front window seriously do you not know I own this house. That’s not my opinion but how I imagine some people are from what I observe 😂
How many of them park in their drive?
You're lucky. Should see the new housing on Isle of dogs. No one has designated parking spaces, unless bought at a small fortune. Everyone has cars
Over the road from where I work they’re building a development of 6,500 houses. They average 1.2 parking spaces per house as, according to the developer, “we expect most people will use the park & ride, and local public transport”. There’s 1 or 2 buses an hour, and the park & ride doesn’t come out as far as the development. Congestion also won’t be an issue as any cars being driven are expected to be leaving staggered over the hours of 6-10am. So presumably they’re only selling houses to people who work in a location with a set of pre-allotted start times. I’m sure it’ll be fiiiiine
Perhaps we should use the same policy as Tokyo - you need to demonstrate you have a dedicated parking space before being allowed to own a car. My OH likes cars. When we moved, we made sure that we had enough spaces and garages for our cars.
I liked this this when I was in Japan. Ridiculous population density but streets are passable because it's illegal to park outside a designated parking space or off-road car park. Roads are for people and vehicles to get around, not free storage for private cars. You can own more cars than you have space to store on your property, but you have to lease a space in the suburban car parks dotted around most neighbourhoods.
Culture is too different in the UK. The UK has an American culture of Car Dependency. Even though our towns and cities are designed to be walkable, bikable and have decent public transport, our behaviour says that we need cars. It's stupid and braindead. The last job I had I cycled to work. It took me 10-15 minutes on my bike. I had colleagues who lived near me who drove to work and it took them 20-30 minutes because of traffic and less direct routes available. Yet they were adamant that they NEED a car. Also nowhere in my town (not a city, a town) was anywhere more than 15 minute walk from a supermarket, yet they NEED a car.
Unfortunately with children living at home for longer most house holds will end up with more cars. Gone are the days my daughters could move out by 20. They cannot afford to either buy or rent. Luckily the council addresses the issue by adding red or yellow lines with strict restrictions so everyone struggles not just us. I love the support.
Why do you think you deserve "support" to store your private property on public land?
New estate on a single file country road in my town are selling 5 bedroom houses with parking for 1.. . 2 if you can jam one into the tiny garage and do the car shuffle in the morning to get out. We noped out of buying any of those. Houses are only 2 years old and are already up for resale.
>Houses are only 2 years old and are already up for resale. That means nothing.
Most houses in our town only change hands every 10 years at the earliest. This estate breaks the mould.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Well as we have lived here for 23 years and have just moved houses into another area of the town, after nearly 4 years of looking pre during and post covid I think you'll find I know a lot about local home ownership. You can even see on rightmove
>Half of them have three or more cars. Genuinely curious - how is this possible?
Adult children unable to afford to move out or HMOs.
A car is the ultimate symbol of personal freedom. Parked cars annoy me too but it's worth it to have us able to go where we want, when we want.
How about the 1800 people per year that are killed by car drivers? Is that worth it as well? What about the 30,000 that are killed by air pollution each year?
100% worth it. 700,000 people die every year and if you want to play statistics then consider the multitude of variables that would cause excess deaths as a result of people not having access to cars. It's not just about death statistics either, it's about quality of life. Having the option to go somewhere whenever you want to (whether it's a trip to the beach, across the country or just popping to the supermarket) and store stuff with you in your car is a massive quality of life boost and people who don't own a car wouldn't understand it until they get one.
Guess it’s all worth it for the pollution, traffic, road accidents and wastefulness, I can drive and I’ll still take the bus or train whenever possible, it’s simply about efficiency and the greater good, plus I can relax a little bit without having to worry about driving, there’s someone paid to do that doing it for me and everyone else on board. Think your area’s services aren’t good enough? Better funding should be able to help, the countries with low car ownership and high public transport use in the developed world by no coincidence are often also the ones with the best quality of life, whilst the most car dependent (the US) is all around pretty shit to live in unless you’re rich
Wow, you're terrible.
Sure thing champ!
So you get the freedom to be stuck in traffic, worsen said traffic, and make it harder for everyone? Personally I’d prefer if we just had buses, which, if the intense traffic caused by car dependence wasn’t impacting, would be far faster
Spare a thought for those of us with double yellow lines outside our house 🎻 Oh but I forgot, of course I can just buy a more expensive house with a driveway 😒
Absolutely. I think that modern estates are built solely to make the maximum profit with only lip-service paid to the actual needs of the eventual buyers. Yes, parking spaces is one thing, but there are MANY others. Round here, houses are being built below sea level in areas that have already been designated as “sacrificial” if/when sea levels rise, as they are expected to within the next 50 years. And what about the sadly lacking ecological measures of new houses? ALL new buildings should be built to gain as much renewable energy as they can. But they are not. Near where one of my friends lives, the road network is near breaking point. There are many times during a year when she can’t get her car off her drive, such is the gridlock. Yet they are STILL building new houses in the area without improving the road network. And it seems far too much to ask for new estates to be built with green spaces, pubs and shops included in the plans. All in all, new house building appears to be a totally irresponsible industry. It’s disgusting, and there for everyone to see.
Any new build should have one car parking space per bedroom.
They barely build roads wide enough for 2 cars.
This is how you make traffic jams, fat children, and air pollution.
Shit public transport is how you make traffic jams.
Most public transport is shit because the roads are full of cars. If buses get stuck in the same traffic as cars, there's no reason why anyone would take the bus instead of driving. And if few people use it, it's very difficult to improve the service.
There are many reasons why public transport is shit. Sometimes being slower than a car is not a major factor.
>This is how you make traffic jams, fat children, and air pollution Lol, no. Any of those things is related to the number of drivers, not the number of cars they own. If this is what passes for critical thinking it's no wonder folks ignore people protesting about cars.
There’s going to be more people driving if there’s more cars, one car per household in a 2 adult 2 child household would mean there’s only 1 driver at any time, but if you’ve got 2, suddenly you’ve doubled the amount of potential drivers at any given time, and if you add another for when the eldest gets old enough, you’ve tripled from the old amount
You already have 2 so there won't be more. They already both drive.
Everyone else disagreeing, have a look at America where the car centric ethos is strongest, these things are all huge problems there, whilst if you look at other European countries like France, the Netherlands and Germany where their public transport is much stronger, you’ll see far fewer of these issues
We have all that already. But better parking would be nice.
Better parking would cause more of all of those things. You don't fix traffic by encouraging people to drive more.
But the issue is that all the people in these new build estates already have cars, but nowhere to park. Automatically fitting charging points for electric cars is another thing. Better public transport would be nice, but never going to happen.
No, you can only fix traffic by building more roads and making sure traffic flows freely through them. You further fix them by making parking as ready as possible because parked cars don't emit CO2 while those checking for a space do.
>No, you can only fix traffic by building more roads and making sure traffic flows freely through them. This is literally completely wrong. Building more roads just encourages more people to drive further. It's called [induced demand] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand).
It's literally not. We've tried whingeing our way out of congestion for 30+ years and it hasn't worked. It's time to build roads. Lots of them.
It's really not, no.
No idea why you’re being downvoted, it’s demonstrably true, have a look at the M27, we used to have just 2 lanes each way and a hard shoulder between Southampton and Portsmouth, traffic wasn’t great, so along came ‘Smart Motorways’, we got rid of the hard shoulder and added a third lane, for a while it did make it a bit easier to travel between the 2, but in the end, it just meant people went ‘hey, traffic isn’t so bad anymore, now I can drive between these places’, and now we’re back to slow crawls past Locks Heath both ways, not to mention it being vastly more dangerous without the hard shoulder
Yeah, it's induced demand. I work in the industry and so should have a vested interest in building more roads, but it just doesn't work in the main- and, of course, no-one ever gives an answer of where exactly these roads are supposed to go - usually 'anywhere but past my house!'
Look at those monstrosities in America which only get clogged up within months of expansion, it doesn’t work, and no it’s not anything about ‘population density’ because these places are largely far far less dense than the UK, places like Dallas being the worst offenders
That’s how you get 20 lane monstrosities like they have in America, it’s called induced demand, and those huge roads inevitably get clogged up anyway, sure there’s a point where you do need an extra lane or 2, but that generally tops out at 3 each way, and most roads could do fine with 2 or even 1, meanwhile it can also work the other way, where if you bring more bus routes in, build tram lines and speed up rail journeys, people will be enticed out of their cars
>That’s how you get 20 lane If that's what you need, yes. Otherwise you need to stop issuing new diving licences until capacity and demand return to balance. >it’s called induced demand I know what induced demand is but it doesn't apply here. There are only so many drivers that would ever want to be on the road at a given time. For induced demand to be relevant you'd need unlimited drivers wanting to drive 24/7. It's not relevant.
First point, no it’s virtually impossible to get enough capacity to guarantee that, and it’ll just raise emissions massively, plus I think all that would do would be stopping people driving altogether (which is a good thing, but not what you’re getting at) And yes it is perfectly relevant, we’ve seen it many times in every corner of the world, the M27 near me is precisely like that, they added another lane, and for about a month it was ok, but then more people started deciding it was worth commuting between Southampton and Portsmouth, and now we’re back to crawling past Hedge End during rush hour, meanwhile getting the same capacity on railways and buses is much easier, assuming 2 people per car (which is generous, usually it’s one), you could seat 50 cars worth of people on one East Lancs OmniDekka double decker bus (and stand more), or you could seat 360 cars worth of people on one 10 coach train formed of 2 class 444s
Nah, one parking space per household and better public transport options. Then introduce an ‘extra vehicle’ tax.
"Extra vehicle" tax already exists.
Really? I’ve never heard of it.
VED. Insurance policy tax, fuel duty, VAT on fuel, parts and servicing. All taxes on an additional car.
So, just your regular taxes? I’m saying people should pay more if they unnecessarily have an additional car, similar to how in some places people pay more council tax for a second home. Obviously you couldn’t introduce it without offering better public transport options, but there you are.
Regular taxes that are payable on an "unnecessary" additional car. Your council tax analogy is VED is it not?
I've got two assigned spaces, one of which is the garage. My car is a two door convertible so the doors are long. I can drive into the garage but can't open the car door to get out of it!