School parking issues- is there ever a solution?

[MinnieMountain]

DS’s infants school has been doing School Streets since September. This means that the street (dead end which ends at the school) leading up to the school is supposed to be residents only during drop off and pick up times.

Recently parents have got particularly bad for ignoring the sign.

I’m a school governor and I’m going in to see the HT soon to discuss health and safety.

Can the collective wisdom of MN help me with ideas I can put to her to get the lazy fuckers to obey the rules? Weekly reminders in the school newsletter get ignored.

The scheme is not legally enforceable as we’re not in London.

The only thing that would work is having a volunteer stand in the middle of that road and physically stopping parents from driving down it. Parents regularly park on the cultural de sac outside the school gates and there have been a few near misses. Parents who park too close to school are lazy and selfish.

I never understand these initiatives to stop people parking outside the school. Surely it just pushes the problem to other places?

If a car is parked legally, eg not on double yellows or obstructing a drive or junction, I can’t see a problem. It should be no different to anyone else who wants to park there, residents or their friends and family, deliveries etc.

I completely understand parents who need to drop and go.

Those who can walk should do. We do, unless we are late back from work. When we do drive I find it easier to park a bit further away as it’s less stressful.

Schools should look at solutions like walking buses, staggered drop offs, drop off points at more central locations etc.

Having scooter/bike parking for kids so that the parents can drop them off and don’t have to carry the scooter or bike back home a few miles would probably help encourage less cars. Lots of younger kids are very tired at the end of day and a long walk home is less attractive than change to scoot or ride back.

If they where parked legally it wouldn’t be an issue.

But on any given drop off at our school we have double parking, parking over junctions, parking on zig zags, and cars just stopping. Many of the cars arriving 40 minutes before school finished!

Like many schools it is an accident waiting to happen simply because parents need to be right outside school rather than park further out and walk in.

Require all parent/carers of new pupils to sign a contract agreeing not to park there
Staff patrol the road and speak to parents
Set up a walking bus
Photo of offending vehicles in school newsletter (prior warning given before it starts)
Reminders in assembly to pupils to pass on to parents/carers

We have a pick up and drop off zone - it works well in the morning as there is a queue of traffic moving slowly towards the are where children are allowed to get out of the car.
In the afternoon, it is chaotic because children arrive at the area and have to wait until their car gets to the front of the queue, while the cars at the front are sitting waiting on their children. The queue ends up causing tailbacks onto the main road, where there are also parents parked (legally and safely) so a line of parked cars with a line of queuing cars next to them.
We normally have a “walking bus” from about ten minutes away but this stopped due to Covid.

Or maybe start making children attend their local catchment school?

We couldn’t get into ours, as there were so many siblings, many who lived out of area. They were being driven in, while we could have walked. There were many others in our position.

We all got put into a school 3 miles away, so then we’re forced to all drive. Eventually we moved nearer to the school as some days I had to drive there and back 6 times with different pick up times. It’s ridiculous that local children can’t attend local schools. Especially at primary age when they can’t walk or cycle miles.

The issue with closing roads is that it doesn't encourage walking, it just pushes the problem onto other streets.

We live 15 miles from our school which has a large catchment and lots of drivers, I have to drive. There is no school bus. No public bus.

Things that have worked for our school:

• putting on another school bus (sadly not our area but great for those that are) which parents pay for
• a 'kiss and drop' system
• staggered drop and pick up times have helped hugely
• creating a small drop off carpark from another space. This has really reduced road parking
• school actively encouraging car sharing pre Covid

But otherwise it's legal parking on the nearby roads.

If parents are legally parked I can't see why a school should be making their lives any more difficult than they already are

An excellent suggestion @watermelon222, but unfortunately she is only a Governor at the school not the Minister for Education, it's ridiculous isn't it though

It’s almost an unsolvable problem but what annoys me at our school is the strong emphasis placed on ‘drivers’ as the problem (admittedly there are always selfish types who do cause difficulties and/or danger for pedestrians) when the reality is that the road layout of the estate where the school is situated was not designed for the enormous numbers of pupils now at the school.

Our school has doubled in size over the past 5 years and children now attend from quite far afield with no option to walk to school. The expansion has been celebrated locally as the school is a good one but despite concerns during the consultation period, no steps were put in place to mitigate the effect of the expansion on the local streets at pick up and drop off. The school prefers to vilify the drivers who genuinely have no other option but to drive and refuses to take their share of the responsibility.

Canadian here. Add in several months of -20 and below where it’s too cold to walk and you have a recipe for a parking disaster. One or two schools have a kiss and drop. Others close their lot off as school buses wait in it.
We live less than 2km from the school as the crow flies, so if we’d like to use a school bus we have to pay for it. Quite frankly, I’ll happily hand over $500 a year (£300) to avoid the parking shitshow.

@Frazzled2207

I’m surprised that it is not legally enforceable at all. Might the HT be able to patrol occasionally?

Do the people coming in cars need to drive at all? Presumably the school has taught the children the benefits of walking/scooting to school and the negative effects of fumes and traffic etc. However depends on the demographic, at our school almost everyone is within walking distance, even though many don’t walk (which drives me insane)

Not all of us live within a walking distance which isn't always a situation that can be changed in some circumstances, such as ours.

We live 8 miles away and my child cannot move to a closer school to where we live and we cannot move house. It's a pain in the ass but that's how it is.

@newnortherner111

There are solutions but they would never be introduced.

If a parent cannot bring a child to school with regard to safety, and obey all traffic laws, then they don't do so at all. Make a place conditional on the travel to and from school, as part of the admissions policy.

The others which would probably work for primary level is that such unacceptable behaviour puts you back of the queue for secondary school places. Another is random breath testing, as I bet that some parents are over the drink-drive limit or have drugs in their system.

Make a place conditional on the travel to and from school, as part of the admissions policy.

Schools are NOT permitted to place caveats on places unless they're a private school.

If the alternative parking places are not close it’s rarely related to laziness. Generally related to time. Ie parent has to be at work for a certain time. Breakfast club alone might not help parents as that is an added cost. Our school has full breakfast club and cheaper late drop off at 8:30 which can help.
Also a free walking bus service from an easier drop off spot with parents as volunteers could help.

Cab you get gates OR PENGUIN BOLLARDS!!! at the end of the road?

Sorry, ignore me, I thought there was nothing else in the road. I realise now people live there.

Absolute nightmare isn't it. Ours has a 600m catchment and there are still parents parking in the zig zags. Makes it so dangerous for the vast majority who don't drive. Lazy shits 🙄

Our LA drive a car around with an ANPR camera on the roof. Different schools each day. I get the frustration, when my DS went to breakfast club, we couldn't park at the school, and local families hadn't yet left for work so there was no on street parking. I parked further away, and ended up with no parking space at work as I was too late, but other parents just blocked the drive to the school. A lot of schools were just built before the rise in cars and working mothers, when mum apparently had little else to do than wander her troop of children to school.

@3Britnee

Cab you get gates OR PENGUIN BOLLARDS!!! at the end of the road?

LOL!!! I'm picturing the scene where a resident wants to return home and is greeted by a PENGUIN BOLLARD thinking WTAF!!!

The difficulty is times have changed. Many parents are on there way to work not going home like many years ago
Times have changed, but it's always worth remembering that the vast majority of parents manage just fine without joining the silly scramble to be close to the gates.

I find it hard to believe that the vast majority of parents don't have jobs to get to.

Get the local authority involved and ask them to ticket parents.

My children's primary was on a main road and it was impossible to park within a 5 minute walk of the school. All of the parents manage by either walking/scooting, taking public transport of parking further away and walking the last bit. Those with mobility requirements come to an arrangement to use the school car park. The vast majority of people don't need to park so close to school. They're just lazy and selfish.

@Watermelon222

I never understand these initiatives to stop people parking outside the school. Surely it just pushes the problem to other places?

If a car is parked legally, eg not on double yellows or obstructing a drive or junction, I can’t see a problem. It should be no different to anyone else who wants to park there, residents or their friends and family, deliveries etc.

I completely understand parents who need to drop and go.

Those who can walk should do. We do, unless we are late back from work. When we do drive I find it easier to park a bit further away as it’s less stressful.

Schools should look at solutions like walking buses, staggered drop offs, drop off points at more central locations etc.

I think alternative drop-off points at other central locations would be such a good idea.

The roads my schools were on were so clogged and dangerous at drop off and pick up times, my best friend was actually hit by a car on her way into school. So many parents (including my own!!) drove when there as no need, it was just easier for them than getting us organised early enough to walk.

Every so often local residents park all along the lane, leaving no room for parents to even drop and run. There is a church car park and a pub car park within easy walking distance that they are allowed to use. But still they try to creep back and block the lane.

If a car is parked legally, eg not on double yellows or obstructing a drive or junction, I can’t see a problem

Exactly this. Some people are incredibly precious. I would also add "not with engine running" or parking on a pavement to the above list.

Sadly, so many parents think they are special and their cars are special and their kids are even more special so stuff everybody else so they do all of the above and annoy local residents and also those getting off their bottoms and actually walking their kids to school.

last school my dc visited moved the pickup/drop off point to the park 200m away from school entrance.
for some reason that resolved any parking issue