to think people should be able to park more considerately outside the school

[2shoesishappy]

ds school(secondary) is in a residential road.so lots of drives and side roads. so people park on the corner so they block the dropped kerb and block drives. Had a good laugh at a woman having to move as she had blocked a drive.
It is a secondary school the kids can walk down the road a bit.

[MellowMa]

Message withdrawn

[Freckle]

I called the traffic wardens today to ask them to send a patrol to the boys' primary school. There are a couple of parents who persistently park on the yellow zigzag keep clear signs, often blocking the view of children emerging from a footpath. I don't know why these parents think that the rules don't apply to them. It's not as if there is no other room in the road. There is, but they'd just have to walk a little further.

The wardens sent a patrol up previously, but they just came 3 days on the trot when the offenders avoided parking there and then things went straight back to normal when they didn't appear.

I've asked them to send up irregular patrols and that they arrive at 3.20pm rather than 3pm, so that they can see what it's like.

[Marina]

We have a supergrass lollipop lady who is quite willing to tell off parents freckle
And we get polite but firm letters home too
Lollipop lady even gets the police along from time to time (we also have a problem with [people driving the wrong side of the traffic island to save queuing in traffic for 30 secs FFS)
We live near the school and walk, and some of the parents' parking is an absolute menace to road safety for pedestrians and other vehicles

[Tommy]

ha ha - good luck

It is a serious on-going problem at our school. We are on a main road, in the middle of a residential are and surrounded by double yellow lines.

yesterday, I saw a traffic warden explaining very politely to a parent that it wouldn't hurt his child for them to walk for 10 mins or so if he parked a bit further away.

There is one (very vocal) parent who seems to think that she has a right to park on the double yellows merely because she is picking up her child

[muppetgirl]

a secondary school??
Whatever happened to walking home?

Am i supposed to drive my darling son to school when he's 12/13? (he's 3 atm)

I lived around 10-15 min walk from my PRIMARY school and walked home from year 5 and my brothers lived 20 (not taking into account timn equated to 'lads' being 'lads') and were never driven to school, in fact, we only had 1 car until we moved out into the sticks.

[Hulababy]

muppetgirl - depends how far away the school if from home surely? DD's secondary school will be about 4-5 miles from home so not walkable, so it will be bus (once she is old enough to do the journey alone) or pick up.

[muppetgirl]

ah, true. Our local school (primary) is literally 2 mins away and people from my street drive their children!?!

[Hulababy]

You re possibly very lucky then. Even if DD was going to our local state primary it would still be a good 20-25 minutes walk, and when I am on my way to work or back I would never be able to do the school run on foot.

[bookwormmum]

You must live in my road Muppetgirl . I've walked faster than it's taken my neighbours to drive to school, leaving at the same time. It's even quicker in the rain since you have to park so far from the school, it's not worth driving. I've not done that since my dd was in nursery and she leaves yr2 at the end of this term.

[muppetgirl]

though saying that i taught in a ctholic school where there wasn't a catchment area and children came from everywhere. There was a school bus which one boy used to get home from his first day at school -he was 4!!- a year 4 girl, from my class, was asked to see him off the bus......

sublime to the ridiculous...

[muppetgirl]

my ds is going to a school 6-7 miles away as the previously mentioned local school (which has been open since last sept) has children throwing staplers at ta's, children refusing to leave the classroom when asked saying 'go on, make me' and other children claiming they 'know their rights....'

This is a primary school....

I feel i/we have no alternative but to pay for a better education.

(I realsie this isn't the subject of this thread sorry for the rant)

[bookwormmum]

There's a primary faith school near me which is apparently 'exempt' from parking regulations (in the eyes of the school) even on the zigzag lines outside the school gates since it has no catchment area per se - granted but a lot of the children live within about 800 metres of the school even so. Parking regulations are still parking regulations in my book.

Never had this trouble when it was council allotments .

[muppetgirl]

I don't get the no catchment/faith school thing realted to parking. A law is a law surely?

Bet that drives all the residents mad...

[bookwormmum]

They're saying as the parents have to drive their children considerable distances to get them to school there, they need somewhere to park their cars to drop them off - faith schools don't have catchment areas in the same way as secular primaries do so they could be literally drawn from all over London. It's a pretty insubstantial argument IMHO as any school might claim parking was essential for parents but it won my local council over at the last Cabinet meeting. Don't think it's going to help integrating into society though....

[muppetgirl]

That is the most ludicrus thing I have ever heard (not a slant on you bookworm!)
...the law doesn't apply to us beacuse we live far away?

I'm not surprised the residents are all hopping mad, surely you just park a little further away and walk the rest?

[bookwormmum]

Well it's the feeder primary for the secondary down the road where the parents still run their little darlings to school, aged 16/17/18 (and the council had to make one road one-way due to inconsiderate parking by those parents) so things can only get better .

[RedLorryYellowLorry]

Recently double yellows have been painted around dd's school. This has simply moved the congestion to side roads. The school regularly sends notes home asking for consideration when parking. Traffic wardens turn up now and again but no tickets are issued - they just ask the offenders to moe on. At least 2 parents from dd's year are "borrowing" blue badges from Grandparents so they can park on the double yellows. It'll take a child to be knocked down before it's taken seriously. We have also lost our lolly pop man so cars regularly stop at or on the pelican crossing regardless of colour of the lights and children disembark.

[muppetgirl]

What we all need is those things that bus lanes have, you know the barriers that can sink into the road when needed. When the school bell sounds the barriers should rise from the ground thus preventing parking around yellow lines areas. Once the rush is over (around 20-30 mins?) they should sink back into the ground. Unless perople are physically prevented from parking i get the impression they won't stop especially if the parking wardens don;t issue tickets.

[muppetgirl]

I do realise this won;t help the side roads though

[Tommy]

ours is a Catholic primary too with a huge catchment - rules is rules though

[2shoesishappy]

muppetgirl the school is 4 miles away. where we live even the nearest school is a couple of miles away. the buses are a nightmare so parents pick them up.

[muppetgirl]

Wasn't meaning to upset anyone
I do know it's difficult especially in older schools where the just isnt the provision for parking.

[2shoesishappy]

i should have explained that bit

[tinkerbellie]

we get this near me too

i live like right around the corner form the school and can't drive anyway so don;t have the prob of trying to park

but it really annoys me that so many people drive to school when i know that a lot of them live really near

a woman accross the road for me used to drive her kids and it must have taken her longer to get them both strapped in etc and then to find somewhere to park than would have to just have walked (we literally live 1 min away)

anyway the people that are driving are parking all the street near where i live and making a usually quiet road busy and quite dangerous at times

[tinkerbellie]

may be we should have the school buses like in america that would save the world too