I regularly have people obstructing my driveway which has a dropped kerb AND white lines.

Many years ago my wife parked across our driveway to drop off shopping before going to pick kids up. A passing Plod had stuck a ticket on her car for obstructing a driveway while she was indoors. Refused to cancel ticket even though it was our own drive.

We have an ignorant neighbour who plonks his stupidly long caravan outside his house and overhangs our drive access. Despite asking him to give us more room he still does it.

I guess you have to accept a lot of people are plain ignorant and inconsiderate, perhaps I should stick a nail in his caravan tyres ;-)

I heard of a good idea the other day from a work colleague. Nip out after dark on a dry night and scatter a few bread crumbs on the bonnets on the offending vehicles. The birds will swoop on them in the early morning, leaving another kind of mess.

If the law says you can't park in front of your own driveway, then 'the law is an ass'.

It is (or was) round here as per my post yesterday. This was years ago, seldom see patrol cars now except when there's a bump/shooting/stabbing.

Bit of a result here too. The other day, a Colchester Council "parksafe" van drove into our little close and without any notices appearing on cars, the two that were untaxed unmot'd and 1 of them uninsured went, 1 on a trailer (today) sold for £500 and the other one into the persons garage.

Yes, I've had a look since this morning and its exactly as you say.

Parking across a drive and preventing someone from accessing the highway is an offence. Preventing them getting back onto their driveway is not.

Our own historical problems were usually about getting back onto our drive, so I'm glad nobody I approached just about every other day for a period of about five years ever challenged me to tell them why they had to move and let me in.

Ignorance, unnecessary hostility and selfishness have reached epidemic proportions in this country, and it just so happens that for most people, behaviour on the roads has become the most common and high profile manifestation of this problem. Social media is obviously another.

Perhaps when driverless cars are the norm rather than exception, they can be programmed to avoid dausing an obstruction to another vehicle. Which, with the continuing increase in vehicle numbers on the road and the shortage of suitable parking in urban residential roads, means that driverless cars belonging to urban residents will routinely drive around the block seeking a non-obstruction causing parking space until they run out of petrol, battery, chicken dung or whatever happens to be fuelling them at the time.

Edited by argybargy on 30/09/2016 at 12:11

Perhaps they'll put a chip in so a driverless car can't actually drive if not taxed or MOT'd.

Who knows? My post was ironic speculation, not prediction.

all cars from next year will have a "chip" to communicate if there is an impact accident and it will call the emergency services, presumably all cars will be regularly (in real time) checked to see if taxed, mot'd and insured and the chip will be remotely controllable as this is how bmw/mercedes already provide some software updates.

you have been warned..

Is that the ecall system, personaly I dont like the idea and cannot see it working as its supposed to, ie it automatically calls an ambulance in an accident if the airbags have gone off.

wont help if ambulance service is overstretched as it often is, idea is to speed it up, ok if service is fully functional, also it can be used to give speeding tickets automaticaly, possibly parking tickets as well due to location/gps knowing exactly where you are

I read our government are trying to put it off for a couple of years, but they have doubts, I gather all cars being fitted with it from next march?