Vent: Tesco Van Parking Over Driveway

Tigsteroonie

OP, how far from the hospital do you live? And have you considered staying closer, if you are that worried about how long a delay may be caused by the Tesco van?

No, I'm not being flippant. I can understand your worries - we had to park our car out in the road during my pregnancy to ensure that we weren't blocked in our drive by a random car at a risky time. But the difference was that we would have to knock on a dozen doors at potentially 3am to find and wake the driver - a Tesco van is only ever a couple of minutes away from moving onto its next location.

(PS - our 'mad dash' car journey ended up being at 12 noon!)

globetraveller

What is your doctor saying? This has obviously stressed you out. I don't think this is a windup. What does your partner say? why not ask him to go into Tesco and ask for a word with a member of management? it really isn't crime of the century and sounds petty on the surface but its obviously a problem for you at this moment in time. If you have suffered several losses already than I can understand why you would obsess over what we think are minor things. A gentle word with Tesco management face to be by someone other than yourself, who can put them in the picture, should work.
Meantime, try to relax more and good luck with everything.

bazzyb

Arlandria606 wrote: »

Wow. What an unsympathetic, judgmental bunch you are. Making excuses, accusing me of hysteria(!), clearly not reading the entire post, all because I'm annoyed at a company breaking the law when there was no real reason to and in the process causing a potentially serious problem for me.

Just the thought of having to go through all that again is unbearable without the added complication of having to explain it to a stranger while it's happening, and yet apparently asking Tesco to behave within the law and give a decent response to a customer complaint is unreasonable of me.

I sincerely hope that, if any of you ever need an ambulance, there's a huge fleet of Tesco vans illegally parked and blocking them from getting to you.

Poppie68

Just found this: don't know if the law has changed:

At the moment it is only an offence to block a vehicle from leaving a property not from entering it. If your car were in your driveway and you needed to get to work the offending vehicle can be removed.

The police used to deal with these as obstruction. But this is now covered by The Traffic Management Act 2004 which made it illegal to park next to a dropped kerb.

Exceptions are:

* When you're in a parking space
* When you're parked outside residential premises with the consent of the occupier of the premises -- as long as you're not paying for parking.
* When loading or unloading for 20 minutes or less.
* When undertaking works such as gas and water, or road works.
* When it's an armed forces vehicle -- so a parking a tank across your neighbour's driveway is OK

Double parking is also now illegal -- you've got to be within 50 cm of the kerb. Exceptions are as above, although the law does allow you to stop to allow people in and out of the car.

Fixed penalties could be up to £80 for the offence.

Highway code section 243 (abridged)

DO NOT stop or park
* in front of an entrance to a property

The rules that state DO NOT are not enforceable by law which is why the old obstruction law, and now the traffic management act 2004 come into play.

stebiz

I think I'd rather deliver twins to a bull than be your midwife. Get a grip.

Johnnytwostep

What a ridiculous overreaction.
So instead of spending 10 seconds asking the tesco driver to move his van, or waiting the 5 minutes it usually takes our driver to deliver the shopping and leave, you spend time not only writing tesco more than once, but moaning on here for no reason and getting yourself obviously all wound up.

Don't you have more important things to worry about.

I have my popcorn, cup of tea and biscuits ready.

Tigsteroonie

This is beginning to smell of one of those threads where the OP deletes their initial rant in the face of opposition. So I'm C&P for posterity

Arlandria606 wrote: »

Last night (8:15 ish) a Tesco van was delivering on my road. They parked over my driveway, covering the entire access to the drive, despite there being room to park two houses down without blocking anyone's drive.

Note: Before anyone starts off on the "why is this such a big deal, stop whining, just ask them to move if you need to get out" route: I'm pregnant and high-risk as I have a history of unexplained losses. I'm under strict instructions to go straight to the hospital at the tiniest sign that anything is wrong, even if it's just a gut feeling. Yes, I know that the Tesco drivers couldn't possibly know this, but that's my point: they have no idea whose driveway they're blocking and what inconvenience it might cause.

So. I took a photo of the van and sent it to Tesco via Facebook asking them to explain why the van was parking like this. As it's none of their business and not relevant to the complaint, I didn't mention my pregnancy. I expected a generic "we're very sorry, we expect better from our drivers, it is our policy not to do this and the drivers should know" kind of reply. Their actual reply was quite disinterested and only vaguely apologetic:

I'm sure they didn't take long as it looks as though they were about to make the delivery. If it is the case that they were blocking your whole drive, you can speak to the driver to adjust the van so that you are able to move your car out.

I can only apologise if any inconvenience was caused.

While waiting for a response from Tesco, I did some Googling and concluded that the parking was illegal since my car was visible on the driveway, meaning that the van was obstructing my car from accessing the road. I e-mailed my local parking gurus (as directed on my council website); they confirmed that my interpretation was correct, and that the local council would enforce the law in this way. They also advised that if it happened again I should call the council or police so that they can come out and issue a ticket.

With this confirmation, I responded to Tesco:

You don't sound particularly concerned with this situation. That's a shame, because you should be - this van is illegally parked.

I've confirmed this with my local council who have advised that, if it happens again, I should call the police.

As such you may wish instigate a review of the policies Tesco have in place regarding their van drivers' parking choices. Though somehow I suspect that "parking across someone's driveway access is fine, even if there's a perfectly good spot 10 feet behind you" isn't the current recommended course of action.

I do not expect this to happen again.

I've now had a further response:

I understand your concern and we will try not to park over anyone's driveway. We will always try and be of little inconvenience as possible to local residents.

The response that comes easily to mind is: "Oh, you'll TRY to not break the law? Fantastic. I'll TRY not to shoplift next time I'm in one of your stores." Of course, that's highly unprofessional and emotive, so I haven't sent a response to them.

Although I'm happy that if this should happen again (which I doubt it will, but you never know) there's something I can do to get the message to the drivers that it's not on, I'm angry that Tesco aren't taking this more seriously. It is, after all, illegal, and their "apologies" are pretty half-a*sed.

I know it's an extreme situation, but if I were to need to go to hospital, a van happened to be there, it delayed me, and something happened, I would never be able to stop wondering if that delay had been a factor. Frankly I've got enough "what-ifs" to worry about already - they come hand in hand with losses, even if everyone's done everything right. However, I don't want to point this out to Tesco - on the one hand, it's none of their business; on the other hand, they shouldn't need one individual's sob-story as incentive to follow the law.

I'm unsure if I want to take it any further at this point (though if it happens again I definitely will).

Thanks to anyone who read all this - I just needed to have a good vent!

Tiddlywinks

Arlandria606 wrote: »

Wow. What an unsympathetic, judgmental bunch you are. Making excuses, accusing me of hysteria(!), clearly not reading the entire post, all because I'm annoyed at a company breaking the law when there was no real reason to and in the process causing a potentially serious problem for me.

Just the thought of having to go through all that again is unbearable without the added complication of having to explain it to a stranger while it's happening, and yet apparently asking Tesco to behave within the law and give a decent response to a customer complaint is unreasonable of me.

I sincerely hope that, if any of you ever need an ambulance, there's a huge fleet of Tesco vans illegally parked and blocking them from getting to you.

I'm assuming - from your other posts - that they are letting you out and about in the real world.

Do you avoid car parks in case you get blocked in? Public transport, in case it's running late? Motorways in case of a hold up?

Do you drive around the aisles of Tesco (rather than leaving your car outside) so that your car is easily on hand? Do you stay within a mile radius of the hospital?

It was a grocery delivery within shouting distance... get a grip.

pimento

Arlandria606 wrote: »

Wow. What an unsympathetic, judgmental bunch you are. Making excuses, accusing me of hysteria(!), clearly not reading the entire post, all because I'm annoyed at a company breaking the law when there was no real reason to and in the process causing a potentially serious problem for me.

Just the thought of having to go through all that again is unbearable without the added complication of having to explain it to a stranger while it's happening, and yet apparently asking Tesco to behave within the law and give a decent response to a customer complaint is unreasonable of me.

I sincerely hope that, if any of you ever need an ambulance, there's a huge fleet of Tesco vans illegally parked and blocking them from getting to you.

I'm glad you're not my next door neighbour. I bet you're a joy.

Once you have your baby you'll be too busy to keep beaking out of your front window.

powerful_Rogue

Tigsteroonie wrote: »

This is beginning to smell of one of those threads where the OP deletes their initial rant in the face of opposition. So I'm C&P for posterity

Nope, OP just gets wound up by strange things. In her other thread, she got annoyed because something she purchased off ebay was hand delivered rather then sent by Royal Mail. She turned the caller away and made them post it.