Background- a new school has opened near my house. Parking has been awful, lots of complaints from residents. Police have been there a couple of times and traffic wardens come quite often too.
This morning I needed to leave at 8.30am to get to work on time. I look out the window at 8.25am and see a woman parked right across my driveway. Proper dropped kerb, car clearly visible in the driveway. I think maybe she's just stopped to let someone out but no, she unloads a double pushchair. I went out and she was lifting a little child out the car. I asked her to move and she said the usual- I'll only be 10 minutes, there's nowhere else to park, I have to get my child to school on time, life is very hard with 3 kids, i have no idea how hard her life is. Continued putting her child in the pushchair. I said again "you need to move your car so I can get out" and she just ignored me, went to lift her other child out. Her school age child, who looked about 10 and more than capable of walking 200 yards round the corner to school was standing on the pavement.
I couldn't think what to do, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't make her move, I couldn't block her car in because I couldn't get mine out, I couldn't move her car.
Just at that exact moment a traffic warden came down the hill on his wee moped. I flagged him down. The woman got her little kids in the car and the pushchair in the boot faster than I have ever seen anyone move then drove away, leaving the school child standing on the pavement! The traffic warden said he had enough evidence to issue her a ticket anyway even though she had driven off.
Her older kid got taken by someone who was walking to school, they looked like they knew each other. I had to get to work so I have no idea if she came back once she realised she'd left a child behind or not.
I was only a few minutes late for work, feeling a mixture of real annoyance that someone thinks that behaviour is ok, and joy that she got caught. I hope a big fat fine comes through her letterbox soon. I won't know if it does or not, it doesn't really matter, but I like to think that karma will have its way. And hooray for traffic wardens!