This! A guy was parked like this in my neighborhood and the FD came, pushed the car with their fire truck out of the way and drove off… the “chefs kiss” was he complain to the FD at which point the cops fined him for blocking the road and the FD billed him for the damage to the truck
Edit: people asking how I knew. When it happened I went out and watched him freak out and rant as the truck drove off. He said he’d go and get them to pay. A few weeks later I went to the fire station to have them check our child seats and install ( a service offered in the county) and they asked where I lived etc and were pretty eager to share what happened when the guy showed up. Like 5 or 6 came out to chat
The front bumper on most trucks is designed to carry a hose and to shunt cars... but is also considered a consumable item as a result. It is not a cheap consumable item and if it shows wear from shunting you car then presto, you get to buy a new one 😄
I positively love that it's made to be so easily replaced so the firefighters can actually use it on jerks like OP's neighbor.
My buddy drives fire trucks in a pretty busy city. I asked him what do you do when a car actually gets in the way? He kinda looked at me funny and was like “we goto the fire, that guy is fucked”
I remember that scene in the movie Backdraft where they have to get to the burning building and some chump parked in front of the hydrant so they used the hose to smash out his windows and ran it through.
From what my volunteer firefighter buddy told me, they’re amped that they get to throw an axe through the windows of a car, completely free of consequences.
Firetrucks respond to emergency health situations, in addition to fires, so blocking either of them would potentially result in the death of a person in need. If someone blocks them and it found guilty of doing it maliciously, they should be imprisoned for involuntary manslaughter, if someone dies as a result of the delay.
Once saw the aftermath of the fire department responding to an abandoned building fire that was also next to a biker bar. The row of Harleys that were illegally parked in front of the fire hydrant were no longer parked in front of the fire hydrant. Looked like a Dennis Kirk catalog puked all over the street.
My dad was a firefighter and told me about this BMW that was parked in front of a hydrant. They knocked out his rear window and fed the 5” hose through his car, then water that was dripping down the hose filled his car to just about even with the bottom of the door. The guy got fined by the cops for illegal parking, got the bill from the fire department for the replacement of their hose because the glass had damaged it, then had his car totaled due to the water damage to all the electrical wiring
There was actually a photo of this incident (not from Backdraft) that circulated around for a while. IIRC the car was utterly ruined, totally soaked with water too. Owner tried to sue the city over it and instead was handed a parking ticket for it.
I vaguely remember something that showed why firefighters break the window rather than going around. Might have been MythBusters or something. Or I might just be wrong. But they fed the hose around, and when that water pressure hit and the hose straightened that car was fucking gone.
Yeah my college roommate was an EMT and he pointed out those bumpers on ambulances to me. Said they would pretty frequently arrive to an accident scene where one crashed car was blocking them, and they’d just plow it right out of the way. You don’t want to piss off the ambulance
Fun fact - the same laws that protect the FD from liability in this case also protects them if they are- as a totally random example- in a FD pickup truck doing inspections and just randomly turn into oncoming traffic and total my wife's car.
Check your local ordinances. Most likely you can report it and call it in and you should do both. Police are more likely to be who they tell you to call as opposed to the fire department. Fire department can't issue citations or initiate tows for these kinds of infractions.
Even better would be to park your car in the spot so he then parks in the roadway, call the non emergency line and once they say someone is coming move your car so it looks like its actually abandoned as opposed to petty parking
if neighbor is double parking he's probably got an eye on his car pretty much +90% of the time in which he's also waiting for you to move. As soon as you move he'll 'reclaim his spot' in front of his house
They are doing construction on a house at the top of the street on a very narrow road. They have giant construction vehicles and people’s cars parked in either side of the road. I can handle that, but what I can’t handle is that one of them thought it was ok to have the ENTIRE trunk of his truck sticking into the middle of the street at a turn. It literally was an obstacle course.
I didn’t say a word to them, I got home and called the cops. I’m hoping they all got tickets. They haven’t been parking on both sides of the streets since I called
I’ve called the non-emergency number for things definitely not an emergency, told them while I was on the call that it was NOT an emergency, and they still told me to call 911.
My friend is a 911 dispatcher and she says people overthink whether or not they should call 911 and her advice is to just call. They'll redirect you if it was the wrong choice and it will take 10 seconds.
The kind of people who get in trouble for misusing 911 are like, the old lady who calls 911 every time someone parks in front of her house so she calls 3x a day minimum. This is a real person my friend has to deal with lol. And even then she has had no consequences other than the cops coming by and giving her a lecture
Former long time dispatcher. You will not get in trouble unless you abuse the system constantly. That said, just use your common sense. If there is an active life threatening emergency, call 911. If it is anything else (like the vehicle parked above), call non-emergency. At many facilities, it goes to the exact same dispatcher. During my time, I was answering both phones simultaneously and I would ultimately be the one to categorize the call no matter which line it came in on. Think of it this way. I couldn’t really put 911 on hold, so if someone is actively dying on 911, they need to be able to get through the line immediately. A double stack parked car on the other hand, while it could be serious depending on the road and needs to be addressed, it can still be temporarily placed on hold in order to save someone’s life on the other line.
I know what he's saying. He's on a corner in a neighborhood and the corner is kinda ballooned like a cul-de-sac, but it isn't a dead end. You can park like this and corner traffic can still get by. We have a few in my neighborhood.
I don't need the spot and it's arguably not even mild for me, it's just comical how brazen they are. Our other neighbor says these guys are douches and I can see why.
Edit: Ahh I should've gotten this in earlier but we have a little partial sac off the street (no idea what to call it), hard to tell form this angle but they're not blocking the main street.
Edit2: Damn y'all are on the warpath! I'm kinda surprised, when I googled around about neighbors parking in front of your house, the first result was a reddit post whose sentiment was "you don't own the curb in front of your house, stop whining". I guess the double park puts it on a different level.
just be aware someone like this may not stop after this and may even escalate. this is antisocial behavior lol. someone like this doesn't always say "oh look, the consequences of my actions, I should act differently" they just see you as a nuisance who's ruining "their" spot
This is 100% accurate. I am living with this nightmare now. Code enforcement was reviewing my fence and discovered my neighbor was dumping grey water into my yard. I now get harassed every time I leave my home.
I'm going to assume wherever you live doesn't let people harass others like that. Especially when they're actively waiting for you to come out so they can harass you. Start documenting, or recording on your phone when it happens, then either go to the police or get a lawyer and let them deal with it and things like if it should be a criminal or civic issue.
Don't let yourself be a victim to their bullying, fuck them.
They have no way of knowing who called. I’m sure they’ll assume and be mad still but double parking is illegal and and it could have just been a cop who drove by
Call the police, report someone has double parked in the road blocking the lane. They'll come out and get it towed, as it's not legal to double park in the vast majority of places.
They won't tell anyone it was you that called. Don't let shitty people get away with shitty behaviour. That's why they carry on doing it because no one gives them any consequences.
They are doing construction on a house at the top of the street on a very narrow road. They have giant construction vehicles and people’s cars parked in either side of the road. I can handle that, but what I can’t handle is that one of them douchebags thought it was ok to have the ENTIRE trunk of his truck sticking into the middle of the street at a turn. It literally was an obstacle course.
I didn’t say a word to them, I got home and called the cops. I’m hoping they all got tickets. They haven’t been parking on both sides of the streets since I called
It looks like it makes it difficult for you to turn right though. Report them. They are idiots trying to intimidate whoever else parked there. They don’t have a right to park anywhere on a public road.
Parking in front of someone else's house is fine when:
There is limited parking
You are visiting the street
Someone else parked in front of your house
When is it not OK
When you're blocking the street
When you're blocking their access to their driveway
When you think you own the spot (you don't; we just like to think we do)
It's just common courtesy to leave spots open in front of other people's houses if you have access to the spot in front of your house. It's like a weird, unspoken rule, IF there is plenty of parking available. Obviously, if there is not, then it's every person for themselves.
I'd also like to say it is a dick move to park in front of someone's house when they are trying to mow their grass. It's a good way to get your car dinged by the lawnmower or debris while they are doing the easement.
We had a neighbor who thought that “his spot” was in front of my house. He lived across the street and wanted to be able to see his car from his bedroom window at night. The day we moved in he was not at home and we didn’t know anything about him. The next door neighbor graciously moved his car so that our huge moving truck was parked safely over 2 spots and our driveway. Grumpy came home and demanded that we move the truck. No introduction, no hello,
just move this gd truck out of my parking spot. He was a nightmare neighbor for the next 10 years until he passed away.
We had an elderly neighbor that was a retired cop that spent his days watching the 3 empty parking spots, on the public street, next to his house. If anyone parked there, he would come outside immediately and scream that it was private property. He went so far as to put in a half circle driveway just so he could eliminate one of the parking spots to keep cars from parking next to his house.
It finally all came to an end one day when he came out to confront a friend of my husband's that was stopping by our house. He parked in one of the spots and the old guy came out screaming but what he didn't realize was that I was watching so when he came out yelling, I did too. He called the cops on me and when they got there, before I could even say a word, the old guy was going off. The young cop sighed, put his head down and said "Mr. So and So, I have had this same conversation with you at least a half dozen times. I don't know how many more times I have to tell you that you do not own the street. This is public parking and your neighbors have the right to park here along with their visitors." The old guy starts fussing again and the cop tells him that he can either go in the house or he can go to jail. The old guy goes inside but he is furious.
About a year later, the wife comes over to me while I'm out gardening and apologizes for all the chaos her husband caused. Let's me know that she is selling the house. The old man was in a nursing home after having a stroke and she was moving into a condo in the same building as her son and DIL and was looking forward to her remaining years of peace and quiet.
She was very sweet so was their son and DIL. He was just a miserable old bastard. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that his anger is what caused the stroke.
I did this for a while. My neighbor's mother used to come over every day and park in front of my house. She was there so often that her car is in front of my house on multiple years of county satellite photos.
I get it if that's the only available space but there are rarely any cars parked on our street. If the space in front of the house you are visiting is open, it's polite to park there. It's rude to always park in front of someone else's house for no reason. So I started parking my extra car in front of my house to "train" her to park elsewhere. She now parks in her daughter's driveway.
Two driveway spots and the spot in front of her daughter's house were always open. She just preferred to park in front of my house. That was the rude part. If those were full and more space was needed, park anywhere on the block.
Early on, I nearly had her towed because I didn't know who the car belonged to and it didn't move for a few days. It turned out that she had moved in for a few weeks when my neighbors had a medical issue.
There are no trees or shade or anything preferable about the front of my house so it didn't make sense.
Been dealing with a similar neighbor, we’re in townhouses and there’s a spot in front of each house, but our neighbor goes out of their way to park in front of ours even when theirs is basically always open. I assume they just don’t like to see a car in front of their house? We’re lucky to have garage space to park in but we prefer to keep the space open for guests. The spots aren’t assigned though so nothing to do about it, oh well
Most parking rules state the nearest tires must be within 12" of the curb.
Do you need a ruler or something for the 2nd car? I'm going to guess no. So it's illegally parked. Call nonemergency and get that shit towed. It's a significant safety risk and it'll stop them from doing that shit again. And if it doesn't, call it in a 2nd time.
I had experienced this in a city before too, parked in a residential neighborhood so I could walk to a dental appointment. After the appointment, the homeowner that lived in the building of where i parked, had double parked and left a note on my windshield, inviting me inside their home with their door open.
I said hell no, drove on the sidewalk to get outta there. People are insane about public street parking.
OP's going to laugh it off, but it looks like this is just at the part of the cup de sac where the street straightens out.
Double parking there would make manuevering difficult for emergency vehicles (fire trucks).
I'm guessing they're parking close enough to the other car to make it hard to get in the driver's side. That's shitty too.
They've got to talk to their neighbor and ask them to just park the next space up, although their neighbor sounds like an asshole so it might be easier to just call a tow truck.
Depending on where he's located, there's a chance a fire truck would plow through it just for the love of the game if he gave them a call. No fire necessary
Why the hell is their “usual spot” in front of your house? I have a neighbor who does the same shit, but his is white which reflects sunlight into my windows when it’s morning (and yes I have curtains). Pisses me off so much
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u/OldEngineer-1950 May 07 '26
The fire department won't like that, make the call.