Recently we published an article about what to do if someone parks on your driveway and the feedback and results from the poll on the page were phenomenal.
We had plenty of comments spread throughout our social media pages and within the article itself it was clear that homeowners were outraged by thought of someone parking on their driveway.
As mentioned above, we also ran a survey in that article to gauge what the public thought about the subject and what needs to be done to give homeowners, the police and the council more power to prevent this from happening in the future.
In total, we had 1,180 responses to the survey and some of the results are a bit unexpected.
People Would Be Enraged If Someone Parked On Their Driveway
We asked “How would you feel about someone parking on your driveway?”
1,173 people responded to this question and the results were as expected from everyone at ABD H.Q:
- 93.6% of people would be enraged
- 5.7% would be slightly annoyed
- 0.7% of people wouldn’t be bothered
As you can see, only a very small portion of people wouldn’t be bothered by this whereas almost everyone questioned would be enraged.
Blocking The Vehicle In Their Driveway
We asked “What action would you take to remove the vehicle?”
1,166 responded to this question with the majority leaning towards blocking the trespassing vehicle in their driveway.
- 75.6% would block the vehicle in their driveway
- 3.9% wouldn’t do anything about it
- 9.7% would pay their own money to have the vehicle towed away
- 10.8% would inform the police or the local council
In the previous article we wrote about the police and council not doing anything about it yet 10.8% of people surveyed would still contact them.
Surprisingly, 9.7% of homeowners would pay for the vehicle to be towed away. One user commented the following on our previous article:
Throughout our social media pages, blog comments and emails we received – we came to the conclusion that the public is VERY creative when it comes to this subject.
Who Should Be Given More Power?
We asked “Knowing your options are limited – what do you think needs to be done to give homeowners more power?”.
1,164 people answered this question and was given two simple choices to pick between.
- 86.3% thought the council or the police should be given more power the have the vehicle removed as soon as possible
- 13.7% thought they should be given the ability to fine the trespasser
We were excited to see the results for this question because as we mentioned previously, the police will merely class the complaint as a civil offence meaning nothing will be done and the council have no power to remove the vehicle from private property.
If homeowners were given the power to fine offenders, this might become a great preventative measure to deter future offenders. The trouble around this option is that the homeowner would need to find out who the vehicle belongs to and need to find that person to issue the fine. This might be more hassle than it’s worth which is why only a small portion chose this option.
Giving the police and the council more power means the homeowner would only have to endure this issue for a short time period which is why the majority chose this option.
The Public Are An Ethical Bunch
We asked “Would you damage the vehicle”.
1,165 responded and we’re glad to see the majority chose to be the better person.
- 58.7% would not cause damage to the vehicle because it’s unethical
- 28.9% would damage the vehicle “only if they could get away with it”
- 12.4% of people would damage the vehicle, regardless of the consequences
The majority of homeowners would not damage the vehicle which is an interesting result because even though 93% of people would be enraged, they still wouldn’t damage the vehicle.
Worryingly, a combined 41.3% of people surveyed would damage the vehicle. The ABD team would one day want the council and police to have more power on this subject and we believe these results show a large portion of people are willing to cause criminal damage over this. Hopefully by showing local councils and MP’s these results, we could get the Government to look into this to grant more power over the issue.
We Wouldn’t Park On Someone Else’s Driveway
We asked “Would you ever park on someone’s driveway?”
1,159 people responded to the three simple and straight-forward options.
- 97% would not park on anyone else’s driveway
- 3% would only do this if it was absolutely necessary
Only a handful of people would park on another person’s driveway however when we dig deeper into the survey, we find some interesting results.
Out of the people who said they would park on a driveway that isn’t theirs, 15% of those also said they would cause damage to another person’s vehicle – regardless of the consequences.
Another 12.5% who said they would also said they would damage the vehicle if they could get away with it.
25% of people who wouldn’t be bothered if someone parked on their driveway said they would also park on someone else’s. 12.5% of those people also said they would damage the vehicle if they couldn’t get caught so maybe there’s some mixed values and standards within that demographic?
Disclaimer: This survey was published May 30th 2019 and released to the public via social media outlets, email newsletters and via organic traffic from search engines. The data received was completely anonymous and no personnel information was stored. You are free to share, quote and source these results however credit must be given either by quoting our brand name, company name, URL or social media accounts as the main source.
Author: Dean Michael