The angry thread

[Trainfish]

I'm starting to think I'm the only person on here who doesn't live in a Close or Cul-de-sac. I also get issues sometimes with people parking opposite my drive. Not usually a huge problem but if someone also parks on my side of the road the visibility is almost zero. The only plus point is that drivers have to slow down to negotiate the chicane created.

[Newportnobby]

Not a question of you getting old Mick.

Our problem is exacerbated by too many folks living in the cul-de-sac who make a living with a company van. These get strewn willy-nilly half on/half off the pavement or parked next to the entrance/exit to the close. A woman 2 doors down has her car + a mobile home thingy parked just where the road narrows into the turning circle. We all have too many vehicles and I think a law should be passed stating if you cannot park off the road you can't have the vehicle. Maybe if their front gardens had to be paved over some might think twice.
(Memories of the morning car shuffle in 'Butterflies')
Grrrr.

[stevewalker]

The trouble with that is what alternative do people have? My parents have parking for one car on the drive, it narrows too much after that and their front garden is too short for a second driveway.

When I and my sister still lived there we had 4 cars. My dad needed his company car, as he travelled all over the country for work, my mum needed hers as she was looking after her mother and her mother-in-law in two separate places, plus taking them on hospital/doctors appointments and shopping trips. I needed one, as my alternative was 2-1/2 hours each way to and from work (assuming 3 buses, or two buses and a train or two and a tram or a train and a bus and a tram all ran on time). My sister did without for a while, but she was travelling daily to university by 3 buses, involving early starts, long travel times, running between two stops, frequent missed connections and then having to walk through a long underpass where three female students were raped in the space of a couple of weeks ... so she too switched to a car.

[thebrighton]

There are certainly issues around here with more cars than parking spaces and plain dunderheads that park where they want but I still stick by my thoughts on the latest batch of delivery drivers.
They've spent their driving lives in a car and are suddenly let loose in a 20+ foot van without any kind of training and, I'm sure this will upset some people, around here I can guarantee most of their driving experience has been in a left hand drive car.

[Dr Al]

As more and more people use mail order there is a greater demand for delivery drivers and as a result there are more and more inexperienced van drivers tearing round trying to deliver parcels in unrealistic time scales.
We live in a small cul-de-sac where numerous drivers whizz down only to discover that turning their large van is no walk in the park so the more experienced reverse out whereas the newbies think "I could turn my car here so how hard can it be in my massive van?".
Anyhow my car has now been hit twice in 3 weeks! First time by white van man who just drove off but luckily (?) today by an APC driver who actually stopped and knocked on my door to apologize and his depot contacted. They don't go through their insurers so we'll wait and see what happens. I'll give them a couple of days max.

Get a front/rear dashcam with parking mode. Then you can claim 3rd party even if they drive off.

Given the cost of paintwork repairs, £100 spent on a camera setup quickly can pay itself back - I got mine (Viofo A129 duo) nearly new for £84 on ebay, and adding a hardwire kit took it to just over 100. Has worked flawlessly.

Cheers,
Alan

[thebrighton]

Get a front/rear dashcam with parking mode. Then you can claim 3rd party even if they drive off.
Given the cost of paintwork repairs, £100 spent on a camera setup quickly can pay itself back - I got mine (Viofo A129 duo) nearly new for £84 on ebay, and adding a hardwire kit took it to just over 100. Has worked flawlessly.

I can certainly see the benefits of a dashcam but it's the inconvenience of getting the repairs done. Not sure how good some of these dashcams are but when it's the side of your car hit I'm not sure if the numberplate would ever be visible   Basically I'm at the end of the road so the vans parallel park next to me then hit me with their front corner when they start reversing and turning.

[Dr Al]

Get a front/rear dashcam with parking mode. Then you can claim 3rd party even if they drive off.
Given the cost of paintwork repairs, £100 spent on a camera setup quickly can pay itself back - I got mine (Viofo A129 duo) nearly new for £84 on ebay, and adding a hardwire kit took it to just over 100. Has worked flawlessly.

I can certainly see the benefits of a dashcam but it's the inconvenience of getting the repairs done. Not sure how good some of these dashcams are but when it's the side of your car hit I'm not sure if the numberplate would ever be visible   Basically I'm at the end of the road so the vans parallel park next to me then hit me with their front corner when they start reversing and turning.

True - you could buy an additional mount and mount it pointing to the side window or viewing area needed when parking though. A pain maybe, but if it catches them then it's a start.

Cheers,
A

[The Q]

We don't live on a Cul De sac, however it is a 2 mile single track road that turns into a green lane at one end. We live opposite a side road which is also a dead end unless you have a Duck (DUKW).

So we get artics doing 3 point turns using the side road, tourists with caravans  who missed the previous turning, doing many point turns and cars using our driveway as a passing place. Our front fence has been hit many times, not one driver has ever stopped to report it.

As it is I've built the fence as a box raised bed to contain plants and more importantly as a defence for the house which is only 5ft from the road. Before I built the fence / raised bed we had them driving over the curb to within inches of the house..

A new version of the fence raised bed is planned , hollow concrete blocks, filled with soil and a bit taller. If they hit that their body work will show the results..

[talisman56]

We live in a Cul-de-Sac and have stolen part of our lawn to make a driveway large enough for both our cars. I get people visiting the lady who does dressmaking and alterations  next door one way parking half on the pavement outside our house, sometimes even blocking part of the drive; and carers visiting the old gent next door the other way parking similarly, both even though the road is wide enough for legal parking, and there is often room  to park neatly and tidily a little further down the road. Some people can't walk that extra 5 yards...

The one that takes the biscuit is the young lady carer who arrived just after I did, and I had parked next to the kerb as I was going out again fairly shortly afterwards, otherwise I would have parked on the drive. Before going to turn at the end of the road, she pulled up next to me as I was getting a rather large and unwieldy box out of the rear of my car, rolled down the window and said "Can you not park there, I have to visit the man in the house next door." I replied that I live here, and she could go park elsewhere and walk, it'll do you good...

[RailGooner]

After a long afternoon in the John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford, UK) on Monday, my partner and I popped in to the onsite M&S store to pickup something for dinner. I treated myself to a packet of M&S Custard Creams - a bargain at 40p thought I.

Fast-forward to today when I find the same packet of biscuits in another M&S store a few miles away priced at 35p!

So our medics and the sick get to pay a 5p premium!?!


I've posted this on LinkedIn and tagged #marksandspencer

[guest311]

We live in a Cul-de-Sac and have stolen part of our lawn to make a driveway large enough for both our cars. I get people visiting the lady who does dressmaking and alterations  next door one way parking half on the pavement outside our house, sometimes even blocking part of the drive; and carers visiting the old gent next door the other way parking similarly, both even though the road is wide enough for legal parking, and there is often room  to park neatly and tidily a little further down the road. Some people can't walk that extra 5 yards...

The one that takes the biscuit is the young lady carer who arrived just after I did, and I had parked next to the kerb as I was going out again fairly shortly afterwards, otherwise I would have parked on the drive. Before going to turn at the end of the road, she pulled up next to me as I was getting a rather large and unwieldy box out of the rear of my car, rolled down the window and said "Can you not park there, I have to visit the man in the house next door." I replied that I live here, and she could go park elsewhere and walk, it'll do you good...

a far more restrained response that she would have got from me, I can assure you.

last year I had some idiot park on the verge outside my house, moving the two cones I'd placed there to stop anyone parking, and when I asked him to move I got told to 
and off he walked up the road.
ten minutes later, my delivery arrived, bulk bags and pallets of bricks 

"where do you want them" asked the helpful driver


that's right a pallet of 400 odd bricks 6 inches off his front bumper, and a 1 ton bulk bag six inches off his back bumper.

a couple of hours later a knock on the door ...

"I can't move my car!"

"I did ask you not to park there and explained why"

" but how am I going to get home ?"

I think I'd wear out the  button if I reported my response.

he had to come back the next day to get his car 

haven't seen him since 

[Newportnobby]

The one that takes the biscuit is the young lady carer who arrived just after I did, and I had parked next to the kerb as I was going out again fairly shortly afterwards, otherwise I would have parked on the drive. Before going to turn at the end of the road, she pulled up next to me as I was getting a rather large and unwieldy box out of the rear of my car, rolled down the window and said "Can you not park there, I have to visit the man in the house next door." I replied that I live here, and she could go park elsewhere and walk, it'll do you good...

I congratulate you on your restraint. She'd have learnt some fluent Anglo-Saxon off me.

[Thorpe Parva]

After a long afternoon in the John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford, UK) on Monday, my partner and I popped in to the onsite M&S store to pickup something for dinner. I treated myself to a packet of M&S Custard Creams - a bargain at 40p thought I.

Fast-forward to today when I find the same packet of biscuits in another M&S store a few miles away priced at 35p!

So our medics and the sick get to pay a 5p premium!?!


I've posted this on LinkedIn and tagged #marksandspencer

We have a BR garage nearby with an attached M&S Simply Food; the prices of most items are higher than in the main M&S in town. Similarly our local Texco Metro has higher prices than in the regular Tesco supermarket.

The retailers will say that it's about economies of scale but I also believe that their term for purchases made in this type of store is that it's a "distress purchase". ie you're paying for covenience & lack of any alternative.

[javlinfaw7]

Some of the M&S hospital stores are franchises ,in our local hospital it was W.H.Smiths that ran it  so this also may go some way  the price difference

[RailGooner]

And it's not just the retailer I should direct my ire toward. Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust should drop their heads in shame for signing a deal that allows M&S and others to rip off their staff and patients.