Home › Forums › West Seattle Rants & Raves › RANT: Be a Good Neighbor??!
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July 31, 2015 at 5:06 am #818067
LiveonCaliforniaMemberI live in West Seattle and on California. It is very difficult to pull out of my apartment garage many days of the week due to cars parking too close to the driveway to my apartment building, but I understand that people need to park on the streets to support local businesses. I deal with it. I am upset that while parked legally today in the Alki neighborhood – one of my fellow West Seattle NEIGHBORS – called and complained that I was parked within 5 feet of their driveway resulting in a $50 ticket! Seriously, is the slight inconvenience of someone parking NEAR your driveway at 9 PM at night (when traffic is not heavy) really worth the price of ruining someone else’s day. Have your management paint your curbside yellow if you are going to be anal about how close a car parks!
July 31, 2015 at 5:58 am #826410
JanSParticipantwe have had many conversations on here about legality, and illegality of many things…speed limits, passing lanes, and on and on. The law says 5 ft. away. It doesn’t say “unless it’s 9pm”, etc. Having pointed that out, I totally understand your predicament. Parking is at a premium down at Alki almost any time of the day during summer months. I agree with the paint…either by the city or by management/owner. It does seem petty…and wonder if they got their measuring tape out. My other complaint is how close people park to fire hydrants. On my block, just east of Adm. Safeway, people park very close…within a foot sometimes, of a hydrant at the corner of Lander and 42nd…and traffic turning onto 42nd going north have to stop and wait for southbound traffic to go, so they can drive down the street. And if there was a fire, the hydrant would be almost inaccessible.
Sorry you got a ticket. Remember the unfriendly places, I guess. Or use your own measuring tape when parking…;-)
July 31, 2015 at 1:13 pm #826411
JoBParticipantthe calling the police on your neighbors because you can thing bothers me too
not neighborly
July 31, 2015 at 1:58 pm #826412
KBearParticipantYou say you were “parked legally”, then you say you got a ticket for parking too close to a driveway. Which is it? I think the neighborly thing to do is not block peoples’ driveway access. You might have been clear of the driveway, but you may have been severely limiting their ability to see traffic when exiting their driveway. It’s unsafe. That’s why it’s illegal.
July 31, 2015 at 2:26 pm #826413
anonymeParticipantI have to agree with KBear. And one might not necessarily know who the car belongs to. If it’s definitely a neighbor, I’d probably talk to them first – even though they were showing blatant disregard for me, their neighbor, by parking like that to begin with. My main concern over calling the cops (if that’s what happened – proof?) is not about showing respect where none is reciprocated, but in starting a war that’s just miserable for everyone.
However, since it doesn’t sound like you live on Alki, how is it that your “NEIGHBORS” betrayed you? Alki is probably the most patrolled area in West Seattle. Chances are that parking enforcement observed your violation and gave you a ticket. Simple, justified – and not personal. The fact that you’ve been inconvenienced in the past by illegal parking does not give you a pass to do the same to others.
July 31, 2015 at 4:03 pm #826414
PangolinPieParticipantYeah, I had a neighbor who was parking a very large van right next to my driveway, on a busy street. It made it scary and dangerous to try and back out. I would never call the police for something like that, though; I spoke to the neighbor, explained that it made it tough to see, and asked if they could park back a few feet. From then on, they did, and all was well.
July 31, 2015 at 4:45 pm #826415
JoBParticipantok.. hard call on this one…
the OP was on Alki parked where they shouldn’t have parked and someone called the police
they probably called because that car was the latest car in a long string of cars whose owners think their street is parking lot
and that the laws don’t apply to them…
but still…
if it was their car and they came back to find it towed it would really really make for a bad day…
and there is what is lacking… maybe on both sides of this equation as it happens over and over in myriad ways in every part of West Seattle…
instead of thinking about how this might play out for someone else.. people seem to be exercising their “rights”.. because they can… and they somehow think those rights extend beyond the boundaries of both decency and the law.
this was evident in the thoughtlessness of mothers who simply walked away from an incredible mess in Spuds that their children created the other day and in the contractors who who are building the house next door and seem to have decided that the alley is an extension of the building site.
they leave vehicles parked in the alleyway for hours … in effect .. my driveway… because it’s convenient for them and they think they can get away with it.
you want to throw up your hands and ask
what are they thinking?
were they born in a barn?
don’t they realize that other people are negatively affected by their actions?
i cleaned up the mess those mother’s left because i wanted to sit there and the staff was too busy to properly tend to the upstairs seating..
i haven’t called the police on the subcontractors.
I have politely and repeatedly asked them to move their vehicles..
and for the most part they have.
but i will admit my patience wears thin. Not yet thin enough to call the police and have them warned and/or ticketed.. but certainly thin enough to call the builder.
it would be a whole lot easier to inhabit this planet together if people in general were more considerate of the way their actions play out in the lives of others…
there i go.. verging on those dang homilies again ;-)
July 31, 2015 at 5:00 pm #826416
dhgParticipantI am impressed that someone got the cops to ticket a car for being close to the driveway. I have had police decline a ticket for someone parked halfway across mine. I have had a police officer yell at me when I called on someone completely blocking the driveway. (I think it was Cynthia, the deranged officer with anger issues) She asked me several times if I actually used the driveway and the haunted the place for a couple of weeks until she could ticket me for blocking the sidewalk. My car was literally four inches into the sidewalk space as I was unloading from the back. So, call at your own peril.
July 31, 2015 at 5:29 pm #826417
JTBParticipantAs dhg notes, the most remarkable feature of this incident is that the police even responded. Must have been a slow day considering recent statements from SPD about how calls are prioritized.
July 31, 2015 at 6:26 pm #826418
KBearParticipantIf I see the person parking there, or I know it’s a neighbor’s car, I’ll usually talk to them directly. If it’s not actually blocking, I’ll usually let it go. But if it’s past the edge of the driveway ramp, I’m not going to feel the slightest bit sorry for reporting it.
July 31, 2015 at 7:52 pm #826419
anonymeParticipantAnd let me repeat: how does anyone know the police were called, and that police/parking enforcement didn’t just happen by – which on Alki, they do with somewhat more frequency than the rest of the peninsula? I’m guessing that this an ongoing issue in that area, and perhaps police have been alerted to keep an eye on the problem – not on specific individuals.
July 31, 2015 at 8:51 pm #826420
singularnameParticipantI once slammed into a car completely blocking my driveway. I don’t regret it, even though I had to pay for everything. It bothered them waaaaay more than it bothered me … in the end.
July 31, 2015 at 9:38 pm #826421
JoBParticipantAugust 1, 2015 at 2:02 am #826422
LiveonCaliforniaMemberThanks all for letting me vent!
I know it was called in as a complaint since that was included in the notes on my ticket. I am assuming (hoping) the Seattle police have much better things to do then go after one-off complaints so there probably was already a parking enforcement officer in the area. Maybe the person has a friend in the department :)
A horrible way to get my first parking ticket. Hopefully it will be my last. I am contesting it since as I mentioned above I thought I was legally parked – although I didn’t have anything to measure my distance from the driveway. A note on my windshield would have been preferred.
Also, I wasn’t using my experience on California to justify my actions. I mentioned that only because while I was aware this was a law – I didn’t think it was actually enforced. I agree that it can be dangerous, but my little car and the distance from the driveway in this case was at best an inconvenience.
August 2, 2015 at 6:03 am #826423
InterrobangMemberYeah, this is a tricky situation. While OP may have only done this once, I’m sure it’s happened to the person reporting the parking situation many times… now, part of that is the nature of living on Alki, so it would be nice if people were accommodating… but sadly, a lot of folks move then and then get annoyed at the parking and the noise and how long it takes to get home… structurally, the demand for parking or even roads is way over capacity.
I think it would have been best (though, unlikely) for a bit of mediation to occur. The amount of space allowed is variable… but the owner should indicate what their preference is, so as to be fair to persons using the streets. A warning for OP and a warning for the owner of the driveway could have resolved a lot of woe.
August 2, 2015 at 2:47 pm #826424
anonymeParticipantWe all know what a curb looks like, right? And a driveway? And most of us can guess what 5 feet looks like? BTW, a curb is not the property of the adjacent homeowner. It is City property, and not the responsibility of the homeowner to go out and start painting boundaries. They might even be fined for it. And I don’t believe for a second that anyone would pay attention, either.
Why is it that whenever someone is justifiably issued a citation they complain that police “should have better things to do”? “While I was aware this was a law – I didn’t think it was actually enforced.” And there’s the problem. Nobody obeys laws these days because they feel secure in the fact that they are so rarely enforced. They they act victimized if it turns out that, once in a while, they actually are!
The folks on this street are sick and tired of parking scofflaws, I’m sure. They saw one more unidentified vehicle in violation and called the cops. It is unreasonable and unpractical that residents should be expected to trot out and leave personal notes on the windshields of strangers asking them not to break the law – notes that will undoubtedly provoke nothing more than a derisive snort before being tossed away.
Stop trying to make this personal. You got busted. Pay the ticket, lesson learned – hopefully.
August 2, 2015 at 8:43 pm #826425
KBearParticipantActually, Anonyme, the City of Seattle DOES allow homeowners to paint the curbs adjacent to their driveways.
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/drivewaymarking.htm
August 2, 2015 at 9:26 pm #826426
anonymeParticipantThanks, KBear. I stand corrected. That opens up all kinds of creative possibilities…!
I still don’t think that someone who already knows that they are parking illegally is going to pay any attention to it.
August 6, 2015 at 5:23 pm #826427
LackingStyleParticipantRE Post number 3
Unless they are celebrating the 4th of July or don’t have their dog on a leash?
Slippery slope of conditional citizen policing…
August 6, 2015 at 5:47 pm #826428
bsmommaParticipant5 feet? That’s interesting, considering there is plenty of “strips”, on my block that only has parking on one side of the street, that are just about 5 feet between driveways. Just enough to park one car but definitely not 5 feet in front and behind the car in between driveways. Parking just sucks in West Seattle.
August 6, 2015 at 5:52 pm #826429
StumbledoreMemberPlenty of parking in Arbor Heights, and only a short walk (through Whiskey Woods) to the beach and Lincoln Park! Not to mention The Original Bakery and Endolyne Joe’s, and that not-at-all-authentic Mexican food joint.
Also haircuts and massages, for humanoids and dogs.
Why people live in Admiral and on Alki baffles me to no end. It’s not *that* nice, and you get way less bang for your buck compared to places only a little bit south but still within the confines of West Seattle.
It’s a Parking Paradise in Arbor Heights!
August 6, 2015 at 6:01 pm #826430
bsmommaParticipantWhoa…I haven’t heard “Whiskey Woods” in many many years. :)
August 6, 2015 at 6:01 pm #826431
twobottlesParticipant“Why people live in Admiral and on Alki baffles me to no end.”
…nobody lives there anymore, it’s too crowded.
August 6, 2015 at 8:19 pm #826432
JanSParticipantlet’s see…bang for the buck in Admiral…walking distance to PCC, Hiawatha Park, Swinery, Safeway, Met Market, Admiral Theater, restaurants, Baskin and Robbins, Starbucks, Menchies, banks, Circa, fast food, if that’s your thing…Yen Wor, if you like teeny drinks and Karoake, a nice gym, the free shuttle to Alki/Water Taxi….the one thing that sucks is public transpo. And if you’re healthier than me, you can walk to Marination and back…or down Admiral to the beach/Cactus/Blue Moon/donuts, etc…and walk the calories off coming back up the hill :)
I dunno…sounds fine to me.
August 6, 2015 at 8:28 pm #826433
twobottlesParticipantI’ve actually lived within 6 blocks or so of California and Admiral for nearly 28 years. Love it here, ain’t going anywhere.
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