I know that it’a illegal to park your car in someone’s driveway. I wonder if it’s illegal to block your own driveway.
What I’m talking about is parking a car accross the street entrance to a private driveway. My (ex) neighbor told me that the entrance to his driveway was like having a private street parking spot that nobody else could use. No animosity here, we were just talking. But it makes me wonder.
peace,
mangeorge
Well, firstly, parking regulations are entirely done on a local level so you’ll probably have to figure out what the rules are where you live.
Secondly, I have gotten a ticket for blocking my own driveway. I guess the logic is that it’s impractical for them to ticket anyone for blocking a driveway if they had to figure out whether the car belonged to the owner of the driveway or not. YMMV.
I sure hope it’s not illegal, as this is exactly what everyone on my street does after they’ve resurfaced their driveway and are waiting for the new surface to dry. You park your car in the street directly in front of your driveway entrance to prevent anyone who doesn’t realize what’s going on from driving onto it.
After reading GreasyJack’s response I should point out that I live in a suburban neighborhood where nobody’s going to issue a parking ticket unless someone complains about something first.
Well, in most jurisictions I know of, it is illegal. After all, it is a public street and thus you don’t get a private reserved spot. (even tho many think that the street in front of their house is “theirs”)
But, mostly, tickets for this are issued because someone called and complained (as **sevenwood **sez), and who is most likely to complain about someone parked in front of your driveway? You, of course.
Thus, you can likely get away with it, assuming you are not in a area commonly patrolled by meter maids and you have no feuds with your neighbors.
They’d run your plate, right?
I’ve always seen people using sawhorses and the like to block it off - never cars. You don’t want people walking down the sidewalk stepping in the new surfacing either, do you?
I’ve never had neighbor trouble here in the city, but out in the burbs it was much worse. I know for sure that there are people out there who would rat you out in a minute if you pissed them off. Even if it was your own driveway you blocked.
I’ve never been able to figure that suburban attitude out, but I have encounterd it often. 
I don’t think the parking enforcement people can run plates. Or at least they don’t have the computer terminal to do it automatically and would have to do it the old fashioned way by calling dispatch, who probably have better things to do.
OK, I’m out in a rural area. “Getting a ticket” involves a police car, etc.
Bill Gannon got ticketed for it on Dragnet. Joe Friday was not sympathetic. (“But it’s my own driveway, Joe!” “It doesn’t matter, Bill.”)
Is there any more conclusive proof?
Berkeley is a special case, as people there park crazy, especially on student move-in day, and there are a bunch of oddities in street shape and such that are puzzlers. Parking enforcement does well, I’m sure.
I wanted to make a thread on a similar topic, now I’ll just piggyback and post the unanswered part of my question. What exactly is a driveway? I have seen places where there is a dip in the curve, but the actual “driveway” only goes 2 feet before hitting a fence with no gate or a wall. Is it legal to park across here? Your jurisdiction may vary, of course.
They can around here. They have a computer in their little trike, and it prints out your ticket right there with all your info on it, which you can pay very conveniently online.
It depends. From the NYC parking violation codes.
i think in many cities your property ends on the near edge of the sidewalk. the city owns and controls the sidewalk and driveway apron and you are taxed for having it. city also owns and controls the street edge to edge.
When I was at the Navy Yard in Brooklyn ('64/'65) we used to occasionally go to a bar in Queens that served up a really nice buffet right after happy hour. I learned a couple years later that it was a gay bar, and that a couple of the guys in our group were gay. That’s probably part of why we all had so much fun. 
One of the nice things about New York bars was that they all had some king of food. I loved it there.
Pretty much the same language in Missouri, as well.
In my friendly little suburb, the cops may knock on your door to ask you if that’s your car blocking your own driveway, but that’s strictly a courtesy. Bottom line, you can’t block any driveway, even your own.
For most public streets/roads, the street right-of way extends past the paving and curb, and across the sidewalk (if any). As you say, a portion of many folks’ front lawn and driveway apron are in the street right-of-way.
A good way to estimate where the right-of-way stops is to observe where telephone pedestals or light poles are located.
A private street, obviously, is different.
The real question is, can you drive in someone’s parkway?
(Answering a question originally addressed to me, but since quotes don’t nest anymore I have to mention that this way…)
Good point. The street/road I live on doesn’t have sidewalks so that’s not an issue I had considered.