School drop off C U next Tuesdays

The arguments for driving primary school children are and have always been

it’s raining/snowing/windy/cold
I’m on my way to work
My child has an injury

I spent a proportion of my teaching career visiting schools and I rarely encountered a primary school that didn’t have issues with parking. I think it’s much worse now too. If people really needed their car to take their children to school, they wouldn’t need to sit in it with the engine running for half an hour. If the pupils are all local, very few should need to drive. A five or ten minute walk isn’t going to make people late for work and who knows how many are working from home anyway.

Schools send out reminders in newsletters and some have staff outside reminding parents about where they can park, but the minute they go in, or the PCSO stops coming, it reverts to chaos.

I’ve seen roads reduced to one way because cars are parked both sides. I’ve seen stand up arguments between parents who refuse to back up. I’ve seen more near misses and more entitled behaviour around school gates.

Cannot agree more, I've emailed the school, the police and the council who were all really helpful but every year there is a new influx of entitled twats in 4 by 4s who think they are the only ones trying to get their kids to school, I absolutely hate the fuckers, I live 30 seconds walk from the school and there is usually an empty space outside my house but its too far for these idiots to walk 🙄

Ever was it thus..
Maybe the answer is to stop trying to change the world and embrace the problem.
Historically, mums walked their children to school and then walked home. Nowadays many more people drop off on their way somewhere so they are in a car.
With very little effort schools could create a drop off "portico" where the car drives up, child gets out, Teacher is there to ensure child gets in safely, car drives off. 2 cars at a time, 30 seconds each car.
The system works and works well.

I was really wondering what a “C u next Tuesday”-type was!!

I was wondering if it was a term like Nimby and thinking I was behind the times…

Oh that's what it means.
Yeah, just use the word cunt or a different word if you don't like cunt.

For fuck's sake, there's no need to be so twee. Just call them cunts.

YANBU.

These parents are totally lazy arseholes. They should just fucking walk. They might lose the baby weight or the beer belly ...

Seems as though people in the UK often think their children are too precious to get a bus though. There might be strangers on it. Or germs.

Same people who think that walking is too dangerous these days - they're too daft to realise that by jumping in their car every time they need to walk more than 20 yards, they are hugely contributing to the danger.

YANBU - this is playing out around every single school in the UK.
Dickheads are everywhere.

Where i live (not UK) all the primary schools and kindergartens in our area have a car exclusion zone around them so that cars dropping off/picking up can't get closer than (i think) 150 metres. Unless they are blue badge holders or residents of that street.

But then, children here often take a bus to school from primary age, walk, or ride their bikes.

Dont bother, i was pushing my pram and almost got taken out by someone turning into the junction and pulling across in front of us. Police didnt even reply to my email form for dangerous driving.

our school is walkable and limited to people who live within half a mile so it baffles me that anyone is driving, let alone driving like king of the road maniacs. These are the parents of the kids in my kids community ffs!

I find the level of entitlement amusing. OK, enraging rather than amusing.

OUT OF MY WAY! I HAVE CHILDREN! I AM A PARENT!

All our local schools are no car zones for an hour at drop off time and an hour an pick up time. You could suggest this to your council.

A local business had to close their car park at these times to stop these entitled parents parking in their car park.

There is a Dad near me I call "Dick Tesla" who likes to drive backwards up a raised kerb onto the pavement in a kind of speed-reverse parallel park manoeuvre without looking whats behind him. I had to bang on the back of his car to tell him I was on the pavement with my child. A raise of the hand in a faux-apologetic acknowledgement was all I got. Fucking idiot.

Also watched the lollipop man have to tell a woman in a big van not to park on the zigzags outside the school at pick up time. "But there's no where else to park? What do you expect me to do?" was her response.

It’s also a problem for me at three local car parks when our secondary school finishes, there are parents sitting in cars waiting for a long time for their precious teenagers to walk some distance from the school. It’s not a rural school and there are school buses going to the next town where a number of the children come from but most pupils live within walking distance - probably 1/2 hour at most.

I have mobility issues and have a blue badge but there are certain shops and services I cannot go to between 2 and 3.30pm as there are no parking spaces. I have to avoid booking doctors appointments, hairdresser, optician, dentist or pop to my local supermarket.

I live on a cul de sac with a primary school at the top. It's chaos every morning and afternoon, and on sports day etc it's even worse. Carnage!

Pretty much every house on the road has a driveway, me included, but that doesn't prevent problems. I can't tell you how often my driveway is parked across, pretty much every day. Cars parked both sides of the road so can just squeeze through, cars on pavements and obviously blocking driveways. One neighbour literally had someone park on their drive last year!

And the rudeness if you ask them not to park there.... I've been told that I shouldn't have moved near a school on more than one occasion, by someone that's blocking my drive.

I'm seriously thinking of moving.

People lose their minds on the school run

At my DS’s primary they now have a PCSO outside at drop off and pick ups (not all) because it got so bad. People drive the wrong way up a one way street to avoid going the long way round. On the odd time I drive to school because of weather, they’ve actually angrily beeped at me to move and I have to go out and say “Your driving up the road the wrong way”. It’s extraordinary.

Two words. Dash. Cam

Had this at my sons school - governors wrote to the council, we now have a camera and if you stop outside the school it sends an automatic ticket. Stopped overnight!

worth a shot OP

I live near a grammar school which attracts children from a wide area. Oftentimes, I see parents dropping them off on the main road (an arterial road with lots of traffic), which has dedicated cycle lanes on both sides. Car doors open suddenly onto the cycling path. It’s a wonder that a cyclist or child hasn’t been hurt yet. So while primary school is bad, it doesn’t go away completely…and these children are learning it as acceptable behaviour.

@Withthecorner That's absolutely horrifying. Was the child OK in the end?

Parking has improved outside my DC’s primary.

Sadly, many adults and children witnessing a child knocked to the ground and under the wheels of a car has made others more considerate.

The tears and panic that ensued, the silent child, the distraught parent of the child, the strong emotion of the people standing around, the ‘run’ for the HT, the panic of the car driver, the moving of cars to let the ambulance through the blocked road.

Utter, horrific chaos.

Fair enough, I don't have children so I will defer to those of you with more experience. My mum never seemed that stressed walking my siblings and me to school, but we didn't have a car and were only 15 minutes away, and this was 30+ years ago. Life seems more manic now.

We live a 5 minute walk from our secondary school. It's absolute carnage come pickup time, which I don't really get as there's a strict catchment for the school so everyone lives largely within a half hour walk (I know there's always a "but but xyz" but for the vast majority, it is a manageable walk for an 11 year old!) literally people blocking my drive and the most infuriating is parking right on the blind corner, instead of a bit further up the road. They also block dropped kerbs and make the pavement impassable for pushchair/wheelchair users.

The primary school is even worse! They have a PCSO outside most days now as the driving had gotten so unsafe, and the headteacher literally stands outside in the road to stop cars being dicks. That's absolutely not her job but I do appreciate her willingness to argue with them!

I live near a pre school and they have nearly run into me before. They are awful people, completely entitled!

School runs don't have to be stressful