Free school transport

You should probably work on your jealousy issue.

The assessment is quite detailed. For example:

"Traffic flow

Where the two way (one way of a dual carriageway) traffic flow is below 240 vehicles per hour the road is assessed as safe to cross. This is based on the original County Road Safety Officers Association criteria and is equivalent to 1 vehicle every 15 seconds and allows a reasonable gap time to cross a 7m wide road at a walking speed of 0.91 metres per second. A written record of any vehicle counts should be kept."

Bear in mind that the definition of 'safe' is based on a child being accompanied by a responsible adult.

It's about making sure it's safe for the child. That's all.

In some situations, the parents might not drive too.

Any parent can approach the Local Authority and show why they think there is no safe route and/or that the closest safe route is over the prescribed distance.

There are rules about what counts as safe. If the road is a 60mph road with no traffic calming, I'd expect a road officer to do a survey of traffic at school run time, in term time, across a standard week.

Assessment of walked routes

https://www.roadsafetyknowledgecentre.org.uk/rskc-612/

There are guides to the assessment of walked routes.

I think the council definition of safe isn’t necessarily the same as your average parents. It’s pretty much is there a pavement?

It's also far better for the environment, other road users driving to work - one bus vs 60 cars

No brainer really

Absolute necessity for the high schools here, there's none in the village and all roads out are NSL with no or only partial paths.

Could I drop him at school, yes, but either he or my youngest (village school, walkable) would be late which obviously isn't acceptable.

The bus is free, but only for one out of 3 school choices because the other 2 fall under a different council so we would have to pay for the bus for those schools

What skin is it off your nose really? Doesn't affect your life or your child's education in any way.

I hear you, OP. It's a bit - what came first, the chicken or the egg. We live in a rural market town with lots of kids in our large catchment getting free school transport. On the one hand there are kids on working farms living 20 miles away. On the other hand you have Timmy whose parents have recently moved up from the Home Counties into a large manor house five miles out of town. Both eligible for a free bus / taxi. Yes, some kids get picked up from their door, or maybe end of the lane, by taxi each day. Then there's us, 2.5 miles away on the edge of the wrong side of town, nearly an hour's walk on the return journey due to steep hills. No buses that go at the right time except the school bus that they're not allowed to get on. I could buy them each a spot, but it won't stop for them near our house. They'd have to go to the nearest stop of an eligible child which is, I kid you not, a farm 2.5 miles in the other direction.

If I ruled the world all under 18s would have fully subsidised public transport anyway, and my kids could flag the school bus down.

I am a little bitter but I would solve it by expanding provision, and happy to pay more tax to do so! I do think it is right that those living rurally should get school transport, but so should all kids.

My kids got free school transport coz we lived in the arse end of nowhere and the schools were miles away.

How does that affect you?

I married a dairy farmer so if you have an issue with free transport think about that when you’re pouring your milk in your coffee. Or shouldn’t farmers be allowed to, you know, farm?

we live in a rural area and the catchment school is more than 3 miles away so my kids get picked up for school in a mini bus. Not going to lie - it’s awesome!

Our area you do have to be more than 2 (under age 8) or 3 miles away though. Those living closer to the school don’t qualify even though it is absolutely not safe to walk (60mph road with no pavements)

You can apply for a spot on the bus if there’s an empty space, but you could get booted off if an eligible child needed it. Every year there’s major school bus drama around the start of the year so I’m very grateful we live more than 3 miles away and so are definitely entitled to our bus spots!

We are 21 miles from secondary school - obviously qualify for school bus.

Where do you draw the line? 5 miles, but with a pavement? Or 1 mile, no pavement, 60mph speed limit? Can't just say everyone gets free transport (better for health, wellbeing, socialization to walk if feasible, statistically). Can't say no one gets transport (environment cost of individual car journeys, dc whose parents don't drive...). Of course, there's going to be some who are 29 meters outside the free transport area, v crap.

I understand there is a school in Windsor where it was deemed unsafe to walk across the Great Park because of the deer rutting season.

I pay lots of tax too. Yet, I don’t begrudge a kid getting transport to school. Strange that isn’t it.

Now you know. Are you going to apply for it?

No pavement counts as an unsafe route, they do also count footpaths through fields as safe routes in the county I live. We’re more than 3 miles so they get a bus. School transport costs rural counties a fortune as more than half can be bussed into normal secondary schools and almost all of sen into special schools

Not a safe walk is a reason fir a free bus pass where I live.

YABU and nosy.
Its not your business

I live rurally and my DD goes to our catchment secondary. It is more than 3 miles away so she gets free transport - DS will too when he starts there. Pretty sure it’s the same or a similar rule in other parts of the country. Not sure what you’re so upset about