What would you do?

[Merlin5]

For several days now, this recovery lorry with an old mercedes on its back, has been parked in my street.




I spoke to my next door neighbour who is equally pee'd off as me. The lorry has a polish reg plate and the car on top has an 'M' on the reg plate, probably Maltese. During most days, the owner removes the cover from the mercedes, and there are two for sale notices on each side. He is blatantly displaying the car for sale. He's a polish guy who appears to have just recently moved here, he lives in one of the flats just behind the lorry.

I already rang the council parking three times and they are utterly useless.

Council:"Is it in a controlled parking zone?"
Me:"Well.. no".
Council: "Is it blocking anyone's drive?"
Me:"No".
Council: "Then I'm afraid there's nothing we can do as it's free parking."

They did apparently send someone around to take a look and told me there's nothing they can do, their hands are tied by the rules they're given. The only restriction is if it was over 7 tons. They suggested ringing the parking design team. Much good they'll be I'm sure!

The point is, this vehicle is taking up more space than one car and resident parking is already very limited here. It's totally unreasonable, especially when it's owned by some polish **** that just moved here.

As it happens, I'm in the process of selling my place so hopefully won't have to put up with selfish morons like that for too much longer. But what would you recommend. Ignore as it's a losing battle trying to do anything about it? Sabotage by brushing some paint over the car wheels late at night?

 

[Merlin5]

Vote UKIP and get him sent home?

Heh, not a bad idea.

 

[Merlin5]

What exactly are you expecting then? Nothing wrong here, please move on.... being annoyed about it doesn't mean you can have something done about it. Lots of things annoy me. Why is it "unreasonable" to park it there?

Are you ******* kidding me? Because it stops two cars being able to park there? This isn't a commercial car park.

 

[Merlin5]

But there are two cars parked there now. They're his vehicles, he can park them where he likes

You even said that he lives in the flat behind where the thing is parked!

Yes, it's annoying, but he's not breaking the law.
You've never done anything annoying?

Wait, you classify that recovery truck as a car? Lol.

There are also two other residents here that also park their ocado sized van and sprinter double glazing van. So between the three of them, that has to be approximately 6 or 7 residents that can't park their .. wait for it.... 'cars', outside their house. You think that's reasonable and nothing to get annoyed about?

 

[Merlin5]

Well yes I'd be annoyed as well, but there's nothing one can do other than smear faecal matter all over the windows, door handles and air vents.

I also don't understand why the fact it's on foreign plates is of importance to you.

I'll tell you why. I've lived here for nearly 30 years, when all the house were owner occupied. There were never commercial vehicles parked here until recently. Now most houses here around me are rented out, bringing far more people with cars to the street. The commercial vehicles I mentioned I know for a fact two are driven by eastern europeans and one by a south african. If that simple observation makes me a racist, then fine. I'm not, but I don't care how you think of me or label me. My point is, it's them who are restricting the parking for other residents who just want to to park their small cars.

 

[Merlin5]

Most of you just don't get it or are being difficult for the sake of it, surely?

 

[Merlin5]

Crikey. You must be a pleasant person to be around. Suck it up. Odds are it's a temporary thing, it'll probably be gone in a couple of weeks and the extra three or four minutes a week it takes you to find another parking is hardly worth the frustration, is it?

And I find the fact that you need to mention that they're foreigners interesting. You can say "I'm not racist" till you're blue in the face but the fact that it seems to affect your judgement enough to not only mention it, but also let it make a fairly silly situation so much more unpleasant for you, is the very definition of xenophobia.

I'll bet that the Pole and the Saffer would happily welcome you into their homes for a cup of tea and a chat if anything they do bothers you.

Perhaps you should grow some balls and speak to them rather than come anonymously onto an internet forum and whinge about it, only to throw your toys at the very people giving you advice because they're not telling you what you want to hear.

Do you have a little boy next door named Dennis by any chance?

You make a lot of assumptions. All anyone here had to do was give me a simple and polite response like maccapacca did. That is all I asked for in my OP, to do something or ignore. It's astounding how many people infest this forum ready to just pounce on someone and spit their saved up venom, most likely because of their own pent up anger at life.

 

[Merlin5]

Yep, thanks for the lecture Diddums but you're making out I'm a miserable old man who probably complains everyday about something or other. I don't. I hardly complain about anything at all! I post a complaint about something once in a blue moon. Your opinion as to my apparent xenophobia matters not a jot to me, so with that, buh bye! Btw, I did already mention I'm selling my flat. I'll be buying a 3 bedroom house with a double wide driveway.

Have you tried speaking to the neighbour who has the transporter and explained that it's inconveniencing people? It's perfectly possible that he hasn't realised how irritating it is.

One thing that might be worth remembering is that at least he's apparently leaving the car on the transporter - he could just as easily also park it on the street so you'd have a transporter plus car there.

I'm sure it's annoying but his nationality is (or should be) irrelevant - being inconsiderate is far from nationality specific. He isn't parking illegally and you've had that confirmed so your options would appear to be decidedly limited - that's why speaking to him might be the best course of action.

I agree with you that it's better he's leaving the car on the lorry, nevertheless it's an eye sore and the lorry alone is still taking up too much parking space. He's also blatantly using the road as his public showroom and the lorry as a raised platform to display and sell the car. I'm intending to go speak to him, along with my neighbour, who is bulgarian. We've been friends for a couple of years now, he's a great bloke.

It was actually the bulgarian who mentioned to me before I said anything that he's annoyed about the lorry being parked there and it was he who brought up the fact about the owner just recently moving in and being from poland. He also said it's the sort of thing that eastern europeans will do (and that in eastern europe, they don't have councils to complain to, they just smash the offending vehicles up instead) so for that reason, I don't think his nationality is irrelevant. Regardless of my opinions, the fact is, this lorry and two other big commercial vehicles are greatly restricting the parking and are eyesores. It's they who should be considerate and find parking spaces further away, not me and other residents with normal cars.

 

[Merlin5]

If it wasn't a Recovery Vehicle you could get it moved as it would be prohibited from being parked over night on a public street under the Operators Licence that all Commercial Vehicles should fall under in the UK , sadly Recovery vehicles do not fall under any such Operators Licence restrictions so there's nothing you can do unless it can be shown to be causing an 'Obstruction'.

Of course if it's a foreign registered Vehicle, it might not be registered with DVLA as a Recovery Vehicle which if you want it shifted may be your best course of action, be aware if they do recognise it as a legitimate Recovery Vehicle there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Thanks doofer. Finally, a useful post!

Would the ocado sized 'green man van' that's always parked here, and the white sprinter van with the double glazing company logo printed on it's sides, be likely to fall under the Operators Licence?

The DVLA registration as a recovery vehicle is an interesting point too! I'll call DVLA tomorrow.

 

[Merlin5]

Give over, them parking a company van outside their home is no different than Steve parking his 3 series compant car outside his house, yes its an inconvenience but if van is taxed and insured he's got as much right as you to be there.

Come off it, there's a world of difference between a car and a very long ugly company sprinter blocking the view and taking up so much space. Yes I know they're not doing anything illegal, but the council need to create rules that say no vehicles over a certain size should be allowed to park in residential roads. What IS the matter with all you people, why don't you care about these things? Do you not care about where you live and what you see outside your front windows? Would you really not care if your whole street was taken up by a handful of vans stopping you from parking there? How about a couple of artics?

The nerve!

Merlin, has any other driver who lives on the street come up and stated that they spent ages and ages looking for a parking spot and simply could not, so had to park miles away all because the carrier truck is taking up 2 car lengths of space for the effort of selling the car it is carrying?

I'm guessing not

My direct neighbour has, yes. Unfortunately, much like the attitude on this forum, people these days would rather have an easy life and do nothing and just say chill out then actually being proactive to make something happen. So I've no idea what others in my street are thinking as I haven't spoken to them. But it wouldn't surprise me if there's a few that aren't very happy. It's not JUST the truck, there's two other vans restricting the parking further. The council also decided to put double yellows at the end of our street, making parking even more restricted. This is one of the reasons I'm selling up.

Look, let's get something straight here. This isn't the end of the world, there are indeed far more serious things to worry about. But I'm still entitled to moan about selfish people parking their huge vehicles and restricting my parking. Ever since owner occupied turned to buy to let, I'm surrounded by tenants some of which don't give a toss about anyone else. I suspect people criticizing me aloft their ivory towers either never came across this problem in their street, live at home with mum and dad, have their own driveway, or simply don't care about the area they live in.

 

[Merlin5]

It should have the Operators Licence details viewable somewhere on the Vehicle I think and you can view the relevant Operator Licence details online as it's a public document, I only know this as we had a similar problem with a guy running a Recovery Truck who lived up a long dead-end street about 600yds from it parking his truck very awkwardly for both pedestrians and other road users on the pavement directly opposite a junction and only 30yds away from the staggered Crossroads on to a very busy main road one way and 20yds from a Bus Stop the other way... not only was it a royal PITA the way it was left parked but it was a big noise issue when he'd sit there in it charging his air whenever he got called out at god knows what time of the day or night.

He was asked politely to find somewhere else to park as it was causing a nuisance and he said he could park where he wanted, so the neighbours affected all got together and effectively blocked him in so he couldn't get out easily or parked where he would park if he was gone so he didn't have enough space for the truck, took a few weeks but in the end we never saw it parked there again.

Nice. That's the way to do it!