Can School insist on DS registering his car

[AngelsWithSilverWings]

My DS17 is at sixth form and has started driving himself to school. He parks the car a 10 min walk from school ( parking nearer to school is impossible)

School know he drives because he is the first in his year to pass his test so other pupils talk.

School have said he has to register his car with the office in case of complaints about parking but he doesn't want to.

Reason why he doesn't want to :

Local residents around the area don't like cars being parked outside their houses and particularly get annoyed when they see a school pupil in uniform doing so. He is worried that even though he parks perfectly legally a resident will make up a complaint about him to try to put him off parking there.

He parks in a different road every day so as not to "annoy" the same people everyday but he has been verbally abused three times now and today someone left an anonymous note asking him to elsewhere.

These are just normal , fairly busy public roads on a huge 1930's housing estate , not quiet little cul de sacs. We live in a similar type of road near a station and have commuters parking outside every single day and I've never ever told anyone off for legally parking their car.

Anyway - DS registered my car with the school as he was driving that initially but he now has his own and doesn't want to register it - can the school insist as and when they realise that he is driving a different car ( they will find out ,due other pupils chatting about his "new" car )

My feeling is that it's nothing to do with them how he travels to school and he should not be made to give his registration number to the office.

Do other schools do this?

Excellent posts.

I'm sorry @Nimbostratus100 if you have had to deal with pupils when one of their peers has taken other pupils for a spin at lunchtime and rolled their car. It must have been horrific, but I politely suggest it is a pretty rare occurrence - as someone else pointed out, far rarer than gang attacks and knife crime.

No, I can't see how the school has any right to dictate how a pupil gets to school or where they park their car. They have no justifiable reason to demand that information.
I like the suggestion of taking a photo of how / where they are parked to demonstrate their parking is legal and not causing issues for a while, but I like the one of leaving their own note, even more.

@Nimbostratus100 how is knowing the number plate of a car stopping what you are describing?

Are you saying that 17yo with a full driving licence shouldn’t be allowed to drive or only in restricted settings/circumstances?
So let’s say nit ok to offer lifts if in 6th firm but ok to offer lifts when they are doing an apprenticeship for example?

I mean I get that those situations are horrible. They truly really are. I’m just nit sure how knowing a number plate will stop that. Nor how school is supposed to keep tabs on how many lifts one is giving etc..

no, a car of teens crashing is a far more common occurrence than a gang attack or knife crime

Teens die in accidents at a rate far higher than through assault or murder

I am amazed at the misperceptions around this

which I assume is down to the fact that knife crime is newsworthy, whereas a road death is very run of the mill, and you might not hear about it, or hear much less about it

@Nimbostratus100 , I believe our posts crossed so wind your neck in

'Don't derail the thread please'. Politeness costs nothing.

I wasn't derailing it, I was asking someone for clarification of something they stated. It is all to easy to take things at face value on the internet, without knowing whether it is actually true or not.

I once parked, perfectly legally, and IMO considerately. Still got an arsey note, apparently the owner of the house I parked beside needed all 3 sides kept clear for “deliveries”.

I had purposely tucked my car around the side, on the dead end of a junction, so as not to obstruct any traffic entering the estate. No where near the front of any houses, so not obstructing parking, view while exiting etc.

but apparently that exact spot was needed by the householder for vehicles to access the pedestrian gate to their garden- which I wasn’t obstructing either.

people are arseholes about parking.

Parking in front of someone's house isn't necessarily inconsiderate. However, parking in such a way which then makes it difficult for them or their neighbours to access their drives is inconsiderate. We don't know which of those scenarios the OP is talking about here. But if he's had several complaints, possibly from different people as he parks in different places, I would suggest it is the latter.

wind my neck in? what are you talking about? My neck isn't out, and if it was, I wouldn't be winding it in on your instruction!

I don’t disagree.

however I don’t see what right a school has to ban a driver giving others lifts and limiting their driving.

how would you implement such a scheme anyway?

This

Ask why they need that data and for what purpose.

If he is breaking the law residents can complain to the police or council.

School have only said it's to do with managing parking complaints and not for any safety reasons.

We have told DS he may only ever give one person a lift home at a time and only if they live on the way back to our's. He has a black box so has to be very careful.

He is actually very sensible and is also very protective of his car which is his pride and joy( not to mention the fact that he's desperate to get cheaper premiums next year!)

I can only take his word for it that he is parking considerately - getting him to take photos is a great idea. One of the complaints was that his car engine is noisy and wakes the street up ( at 8:45am!) Not much he can do about engine noise - it hasn't been altered or anything and passed the MOT fine a few weeks ago.

People are funny about parking. I've had a few people be funny with me if I've ever parked around that area . I'm always courteous , never block drives but I've had ( usually older men ) come out and try to intimidate me into to moving elsewhere. As I said before , we have the exact same situation outside my house but I accept that's it's a public road and none of my business.

I've not found any mention of giving car registrations on the school website - only to do with registering to use the student car park which is only open to the upper sixth pupils due to limited spaces. DS was told he had to register even though he was parking off site.

He has a car registered already? So I would just leave that as it is and don't inform them that he's changed his car. Its really none of their business.

The staff probably park on site

I am very happy to hear you limit the number he can give a lift to, and he has a black box. I wish this was compulsory

I suppose the other way to look at this is that a school has a responsibility to its community, and that means the area and residents around the school as well as the pupils who attend it. If the school is getting repeated complaints about pupils parking from local residents, they do have to respond to that because they are part of that community.

So you might want to consider whether your son is being a considerate member of the community he is a part of. (I’m not saying he is or he isn’t, but that’s the broader context here.)

I agree with you - it's none of their business where he parks his car. Do the teachers register their cars out of interest?

Yes all staff do.

A couple of weeks ago an all staff email went out because a car wasn’t registered and another car crashed into the side of it.
It was highly likely to be a staff members car but no one was sure as it wasn’t registered.
It turned out it was a staff members and it took ages to find the person and so the person who crashed into them had long gone.
If the car has been registered then they’d have just phoned the owner.

Usually it is all staff emails about being blocked in or leaving lights on.
But if they know who the car is registered to then they can just tell that person.

I don’t see why you wouldn’t register the car.
Nothing bad is going to happen if the school know the owner.

And I don’t know why someone would be in uniform at his age anyway, so the neighbours won’t know.

Sounds like he’s being dodgey.

@Nimbostratus100 we have a friend who is not only in the car insurance business but also a special constable - we got him to give DS a big talk when he was deciding whether or not to go for a black box. Luckily he convinced him.

I'd be more inclined to get a dash cam in his car for when it's parked up.

None of the schools business

YY dash cam an extremely good idea

Whilst I think the school should explain themselves better, I am with any school that discourages pupils from driving to and from school. I wonder if there is some requirement perhaps by the academy (if one) or local authority to report on corporate and social responsibility, and therefore the question will be asked how many come to school by car, how many walk etc.

@BeetleyCarapace I think this is it exactly - the school want to be good neighbours. It's just that the neighbours are quite territorial about parking.

@Cocobutt he's just as annoyed about having to wear school uniform well into his 18th year!

Strangely enough, it makes me think the opposite and that it’s an area where residents just don’t want teenagers and parents parking there. My estate is the same (you just have et to read the FB page of the town!!).
We’ve had comments on how said teenagers should park in the ‘station’ carpark, with about 30 spaces available which would then become an issue for anyone wanting to get the train. Comments on how they can afford a car but don’t want to pay the £3 fir the parking etc….

People are twats and can be very entitled.

YY to that too.

As your DS isn’t parking on the school site, it has no business asking for his registration.

Even if it means that a grumpy neighbour could phone the school to complain and the school can then identify who they’re complaining about, they have no right to tell your son where he can and can’t park his car anyway. It’s pointless. If the car was parked illegally, no doubt the miserable fuckers would call the police or the council. Presumably they know they won’t get get anywhere with them, so they’re phoning the school instead.

The school needs to be honest with the grumpy people and say there’s nothing they can do about students parking legally on public roads instead of trying to shift the problem onto their students.