Living in a house with no driveway can be a nightmare for parking.
If you don’t have the luxury of a dedicated space to park your vehicle, or if your household has too many cars to fit in the driveway, then you’ll know how much of a pain it can be to find suitable parking on the road.
As long as there are no parking restrictions, roadside spaces are a free-for-all and even though it might be nice to park directly outside your own house, you don’t actually own that space so can’t always guarantee it’ll be free for you.
Rows over roadside parking are common among neighbours, especially those who believe they have some sort of right to park outside their house and leave angry notes when they find “their” space taken.
But one man has been left baffled by his neighbour’s recent actions, as not only has he been trying to reserve a parking space on the street, but it’s not even outside his own house.
In a post on Reddit, the man explained that another man who lives across the street from him recently bought a new car, and because he already has a car in his driveway, he has to park it on the road.
He’s been trying to reserve roadside parking by placing cones along the kerb, but the cones take up the space between his house and the house next to him – as he already has a third vehicle parked directly outside his own property.
The man wrote: “This causes more people from his side of the street to park on my side, and because I get home late most of the time, I’ll have to park around the block, which worries me because there are lots of car break-ins in my area.
“I have called it in to the police but nothing has been done about it. I don’t want to move the cones myself because the guy is a dirtbag and I know he will retaliate.”
Commenters on the post pointed out that in many areas, including New Jersey, USA, where the man is from, it is illegal to place items such as cones on the road to reserve a parking space.
It is also an offence to place cones in the street in the UK. Section 137 of the Highways Act 1980 states: ” If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks or a fine or both.”
Commenters on the post therefore encouraged the man to contact the police and his local council over the issue, while others joked that they were “free cones” that the man could collect for himself.
One person said: “No it’s not legal. I’d move the cones to his lawn and park there. F**k that guy.”
And another stated: “Throw those traffic cones into his yard. He doesn’t own the street.”
While a third also wrote: “Move the cones. Park there, or let other people park there. I’ve been on this planet for nearly 60 years and can honestly say I have never seen so much entitlement as exists now.”
