Gants Hill residents fed up of ‘stupid’ fines for cars parked on drives

stator

What is the law regarding how many times you can be fined for a single event?
If you remain parked illegally for 2 days without moving your car, can they fine you every day, every hour, every minute?

Stoke

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

It's up to each householder that isn't prepared to switch their car to a model that will fit on their drive and isn't prepared to accept being fined. Moving would surely be a last resort whereas switching cars would probably be a sensible step to avoid being fined in the future.

I'll say it again. No one would buy a bed too big to fit into their bedroom, a bath too long to fit in the bathroom, a sofa too big to fit in their living room or a range cooker to fit into a standard 600mm appliance space. Why is buying a car too big to fit on your drive different? If you need a large car for whatever reason, you need to find a place where you can park it correctly. It's no one else's responsibility other than your own. It's not the council's responsibility to bend the rules to allow you to do what you want because you "need" to park your car outside your house.

The problem with your analogy, is the relative size of beds has remained fairly constant for a long long time. Beds now are about as big as beds made 70 years ago.... Give or take a few inches of course. The same applies to baths, sofas, toilets, sinks and any other random household item you can think of. Cars on the other hand have not stayed the same, size wise. If these houses were built around the time the Austin Mini was the most popular car, then I can assure you the builders were not thinking in 50+ years time that a common modern small family car is something like a Ford Focus. I doubt there is a car a small as the Mini these days, so it's either you dip into the second hand market or you're faced with a problem.

To expect the residents of a working class neighbourhood to just uproot their lives and leave is ridiculous as well. The street is narrow so on street parking isn't an option. The most obvious solution in my eyes, is to give them a buffer. 6-12 inches would be enough.

Aylesbury_Duck

Stoke wrote: »

The problem with your analogy, is the relative size of beds has remained fairly constant for a long long time. Beds now are about as big as beds made 70 years ago.... Give or take a few inches of course. The same applies to baths, sofas, toilets, sinks and any other random household item you can think of. Cars on the other hand have not stayed the same, size wise. If these houses were built around the time the Austin Mini was the most popular car, then I can assure you the builders were not thinking in 50+ years time that a common modern small family car is something like a Ford Focus. I doubt there is a car a small as the Mini these days, so it's either you dip into the second hand market or you're faced with a problem.

To expect the residents of a working class neighbourhood to just uproot their lives and leave is ridiculous as well. The street is narrow so on street parking isn't an option. The most obvious solution in my eyes, is to give them a buffer. 6-12 inches would be enough.

You make a good point in your first paragraph about the size inflation of cars and a small buffer does seem a pragmatic solution, but a quick virtual stroll down the road in question shows a number of things:

- smaller car models can be parked entirely on most drives, or with a few inches protruding onto the path. So there are plenty of modern models that will reasonably fit.
- some houses have the whole front garden paved, and parking diagonally would mean a larger car could fit, as demonstrated in streetview. The counterargument would be that perhaps those families have two cars to park, but that puts us back in the realms of whether it's a suitable place to live if you "need" two cars and you don't have sufficient space to park them.
- some cars are parked badly so that they stick out a long way when there's plenty of room to pull in further. Those people are fair game for tickets in my view and shouldn't be bleating about it.
- some houses have had porches extended, further limiting the space available for parking. Should householders extend their homes and just expect the council to accommodate the rear ends of their cars?

I accept that the council should show some pragmatism in a nod to modern car sizes and historical layouts, but in the story, the residents appear to have no appetite for reciprocating that pragmatism. They expect to be able to park what they like as they like and expect the "stupid" council to permit it. Streetview demonstrates this perfectly. It is unreasonable (to a point) to expect families to uproot and leave, but I'd suggest that if they're not prepared for a little give and take and that their lifestyle absolutely demands multiple cars or large cars they can't accommodate, then they should be moving elsewhere. People move all the time for various reasons: choice of schools, job locations, family responsibilities, outgrowing the living space and so on. I don't see why moving because you can't park your car(s) safely/correctly is any different.

facade

Stoke wrote: »

The most obvious solution in my eyes, is to give them a buffer. 6-12 inches would be enough.

Lets all have one then. I had to turn down a motorhome this year that was a genuine bargain as it was 6" longer than my drive. Allowing me to use 1' of the pavement as an extension of my drive would have meant I could have fitted it on. :mad:

Stoke

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

You make a good point in your first paragraph about the size inflation of cars and a small buffer does seem a pragmatic solution, but a quick virtual stroll down the road in question shows a number of things:

- smaller car models can be parked entirely on most drives, or with a few inches protruding onto the path. So there are plenty of modern models that will reasonably fit.
- some houses have the whole front garden paved, and parking diagonally would mean a larger car could fit, as demonstrated in streetview. The counterargument would be that perhaps those families have two cars to park, but that puts us back in the realms of whether it's a suitable place to live if you "need" two cars and you don't have sufficient space to park them.
- some cars are parked badly so that they stick out a long way when there's plenty of room to pull in further. Those people are fair game for tickets in my view and shouldn't be bleating about it.
- some houses have had porches extended, further limiting the space available for parking. Should householders extend their homes and just expect the council to accommodate the rear ends of their cars?

I accept that the council should show some pragmatism in a nod to modern car sizes and historical layouts, but in the story, the residents appear to have no appetite for reciprocating that pragmatism. They expect to be able to park what they like as they like and expect the "stupid" council to permit it. Streetview demonstrates this perfectly. It is unreasonable (to a point) to expect families to uproot and leave, but I'd suggest that if they're not prepared for a little give and take and that their lifestyle absolutely demands multiple cars or large cars they can't accommodate, then they should be moving elsewhere. People move all the time for various reasons: choice of schools, job locations, family responsibilities, outgrowing the living space and so on. I don't see why moving because you can't park your car(s) safely/correctly is any different.

Well, then each case has to be judged on an individual basis. If the vehicle over-hanging is obnoxiously parked (i.e. 100cm from the wall, and 12 inches over the pavement) then you ticket then. If the vehicle is so close to the wall that they really couldn't move it any further forward, then you turn a blind eye. Surely this isn't that hard to solve?

facade wrote: »

Lets all have one then. I had to turn down a motorhome this year that was a genuine bargain as it was 6" longer than my drive. Allowing me to use 1' of the pavement as an extension of my drive would have meant I could have fitted it on. :mad:

yeah..... because the two cases are definitely the same aren't they? They want to park a Ford Focus while you want to park a 40 foot motorhome on your drive.

almillar

Agreed, so what small car do you recommend for a family of perhaps 5 or 6?

I suppose povvos like this should just stop pro-creating right?

I know what you're getting at, Stoke, but firstly, surely not every single overhanging car needs to be carrying 5 or 6 people, so downsizing the car really is a realistic option.

And secondly, well, this 6 person family has either moved into a house too small, bought a car too big, or 'created' a family too big, for the residence they live in.
Which of these 3 options are they not responsible for? What should the council do for them?

facade

Stoke wrote: »

yeah..... because the two cases are definitely the same aren't they? They want to park a Ford Focus while you want to park a 40 foot motorhome on your drive.

Yes the cases are exactly the same. People parking overhanging the pavement, which they are not entitled to do.

They don't have to own a car that is too long for their drive, same as I didn't have to buy that motorhome. Difference is, I didn't buy it, I'm not overhanging the pavement, and I haven't created a non-story in the press over getting (quite rightly) ticketed for doing so.

Aylesbury_Duck

Stoke wrote: »

Well, then each case has to be judged on an individual basis. If the vehicle over-hanging is obnoxiously parked (i.e. 100cm from the wall, and 12 inches over the pavement) then you ticket then. If the vehicle is so close to the wall that they really couldn't move it any further forward, then you turn a blind eye. Surely this isn't that hard to solve?

Isn't that exactly what's happened in this instance? The article implies that some residents' cars were ticketed, not all. Presumably, the officer ticketed those cars that could and should have been parked properly.

trinidadone complained that they were "parked legally", which is obviously incorrect. He called for an "honourable solution" and for "common sense" to prevail, which is what seems to have been applied. Mind you, he also advocated gifting public land to residents so they could park their cars legally. :rotfl:

In other words, what are the residents complaining about? They got the common sense they were looking for.

[Deleted User]

My neighbour has parking space for four cars, but still parks her car with the front half blocking the shared drive, and the back half blocking the pavement.

andygb

I have just had a look at Google for Roll Gardens, and those houses do not have drives. It looks as though a lot of people have had dropped kerbs done, but they are not proper driveways. If the houses were built in the 1940's it is doubtful that many people who lived there would have had cars anyway.
There is even one house with a Nissan Micra, which is just overlapping the pavement.
It also looks as though some of the cars are parked on fronts where they have not bothered to have a dropped kerb.
Keep booking them I say, they are breaking the law.