I live in a road with a school

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgr9qd752e8o

Medway council have closed roads around schools to stop the madness

Anyone who parks in your drive should be blocked in, and they can call the police.

Anyone parking across a junction, reported to the police on the presumption they are on drugs or drink.

Campaign for enforceable restrictions.

Most of those taking their children to and from school can walk in any case.

By my DC primary school the head teacher and local councillor have got together and now between 8.30-9.15 and 2:45-3.30 the roads around the school are closed unless you are a resident and the residents have been issued with passes to get in and out the road. ANPR camera have been fitted and £55 fine if anyone goes through without a pass during these times

The council are limited to what they can enforce, they can only hand out tickets for parking on the yellow markings. It would have to be the police to deal with a lot of the parking / driving issues/ offenses that take place on the school run

True, but I don't see why they couldn't make it so that parking on zigzag lines is just as punishable as double yellow ones. We are talking safety of children here so why not change it?

They can give tickets for obstructing the pavement (by parking on it).

The council are limited to what they can enforce, they can only hand out tickets for parking on the yellow markings. It would have to be the police to deal with a lot of the parking / driving issues/ offenses that take place on the school run.

Our school used to tell you when the parking wardens were coming, how stupid is that!
100% fine then over and over. I think a lot of schools should have red double lines outside too.

I third this. It's a guaranteed income stream that renews itself over and over again.

Plus it might stop a child actually being run over, seeing as the parents behaving like this don't care about this so long as it's not theirs.

My son's school introduced a before and afterschool play session (not as formal as a breakfast or afterschool club) for an extra 45 minutes in the morning and an hour after school. It was just supervised play in the hall, but it made such an enormous difference because you didn't have lots of parents dropping off and collecting at the same time.

Local authorities should be all over this! If they issue fines they earn money - which they desperately need

Totally agree with this! It's a win win situation- they'd get money in and people would be deterred to park there after the first fine or two. Job done. Plus, they'd only have to send out parking attendants in the morning and at 3pm during term times so its not like it would waste money in sending people out to monitor it constantly.

Local authorities should be all over this! If they issue fines they earn money - which they desperately need.

Fines can be avoided by parking according to the Highway Code and common sense.

Local Authorities could set parking attendants school related targets.

Imagine the funds that would roll in.

I've lived by a school for 10 years and it has always been like this. The school have sent out numerous letters, community police officers come out now and again, parents driving/parking dangerously have been shamed on the parents FB page. A child has been knocked over and an adult knocked off their bike by cars. There is a supermarket at the end of the road that allows parents to park there for drop off and pick up, literally a 2 minute walk, they still don't do it and park on yellow lines/across people's drives/double park. You've nothing to lose writting but I wouldn't expect anything to change. I'm not sure there's anything else the school near me could do but it still continues.

I think cameras everywhere is probably the only real way to deal with this kind of situation. It’s a shame as nobody likes feeling like they are in a surveillance society, but it’s clear that a lot of people simply won’t self-police…

England’s school system is mad, ugh!

I think it’s probably just as well in some ways that the child population is declining in most parts of the UK - can you imagine what it would be like if the number of children needing school places was going up rather than down? The traffic situation people are describing would get worse still, and people would fight like mad to stop any new schools being opened near them.

YANBU… but you are never going to change this. This is every primary school everywhere. People park selfishly and idiotically to save themselves a couple of minutes walk. I used to be a childminder and often had to walk my double buggy with toddlers in tow down the road as people had blocked the footpaths with their cars. Now I work in a school and we get constant complaints from residents that they were blocked in, from parents that their child was almost hit, that someone parked on the pelican crossing etc etc. there is nothing we can do. We can send out messages asking people to park considerately and be careful. If we’re lucky we can get a couple of PCSO’s to stand there for a few days but as soon as they are gone it’s back to stupid parking again.
if we challenge anyone we get verbally abused.
It really is awful but there are not enough PCSO’s to enforce parking at every school and you are never going to be able to change it

I’ve been talking to DD about it and she reminded me of a parent at her primary.
They lived about 3/4 minutes walk away (we walked past them) but the dad would drive his DD to school, but he had to drive to the opposite side to their entrance and then walk her over - which was further than the distance if they walked from home.

Yes, how remiss of my parents not to realise that 37 years into the future the school would have tripled in size, everyone would have started driving instead of walking, and they would have disabled children living with them who require wheelchair access to do the school run.

Honestly, imagine buying a house based on being affordable, in a lovely area, close to family and suiting their needs. Why oh why didn’t they use their crystal ball??

Doesnt make its ok to obstruct driveways or park on on them either though does it. This attitude stinks...

Major roadworks start right outside the school opposite me next Monday so the parents will have to park further away and walk

Our area is the opposite, one decent school in the city is ridiculously oversubscribed, there are 2 small ones without catchment also oversubscribed then a massive chain school in the other direction which is now oversubscribed thanks to influx of new builds so a third of our primary will now be driving daily out of the city to a village school as that's where we've been placed rather than any of the 4 that could be cycled to (or the other 3 that are slightly closer). Bonkers system and adds to the traffic!

I feel your pain as my parents live right next to a very good primary school so they have the same issues although they don’t work so nothing is spoiling for them. I feel YABU slightly as you drive to pick up your older kids so you are not to different in that sense.

Not necessarily.

I don't bitch about the parents who still drive their kids to the state schools next to me because they now all park properly. They have become self-policing. They are also acting like the private nursery and prep school parents so their drop offs and pick ups are done as quickly as possible. If they don't they risk getting a parking ticket and if they fight/abuse anyone they know their child's place can be removed.

Yes - sometimes 20 minutes! In the winter you can see the exhaust fumes belching out right into the faces of kids.
Some people just don't care about others anymore

A huge issue is siblings getting into schools before the kids who live a stones throw away. This ridiculous criteria is causing loads of parents to not get their local walking distance school in my area, and therefore we are being forced to drive to the school miles away. This happens all the time round our way; dozens of cars driving to the school we could have walked to, but they got in first due to a sibling. We had to drive past our local school to take our kids to the next school over. Stupid. We would have loved to have walked to our local but it was literally filled with siblings none of whom lived nearby.

Doesn't excuse dickhead parking, but I'd be complaining to the councils about their stupid criteria.

When the town schools are as shocking as ours, it happens. A lot! All the small village schools are
over subscribed. We’re in Devon, it’s a ‘thing’.