28-Apr-08 Parking on the Street

With the boss here on Monday for critical meetings, I'm getting a jump-start on the week.

As you drive through the side streets in Bournemouth, people park along the street 1/2 up on the curb, and it's common. It makes many of the streets down to only a single car lane, instead of able to have 2 lanes of traffic on the street. As you drive down these areas, if you encounter an oncoming car, you have to maneuver over in between parked cars, and let the other car pass, or vice-versa.

And interestingly, it's very common for cars to be parked in both directions on the same side of the street. If you see a parking spot, you don't make a u-turn in the correct direction and park, you simply just pull over across traffic and park, even if your car is facing opposite direction of traffic. That's all fine and dandy.....until you have to pull out of the parking spot, especially if it's a busy street. You have to wait for BOTH directional lanes of traffic to clear before you can pull out.

Most of the residences, unless pretty expensive, don't have garage parking, you park on the street where you live. A few have a little side carport in the front of the house, which takes up space where a front yard would be. (And a yard here is called a garden....UKers think yard is like a shipyard/dock area) Relatively few of the residences have large, green front gardens, it is mostly in the back, unless you go to the upscale areas.