A parking one AND a school parking one in one

[yesyesitsaparkingone]

Tell me if you need a diagram, obviously I have name changed for this.

Kids go to small primary in Irish town in rural / very spread out suburbs. No public transport for primary aged kids although those living in the town walk.

School (200 pupils) is on a residential road which has four schools - two primaries, two secondaries - on the lower half. So school drop off is very intense: cones, teachers of the secondaries marshalling, insane traffic between 8.30 (when schools open) and 9.

There is maybe a hundred yards where you can drop your kids outside our school without having a long walk. Feels especially stressful today as everyone bringing in boxes of kids' decorated pumpkins and supplies for the halloween fete etc. This is why a long-running issue made me furious this morning.

The same three mums park their enormous cars (xc90, porsche cayenne, and another one) in the prime drop off spots outside the one pedestrian gate the kids can go in then stand in the middle of the pavement chatting all the way through drop off from before 8.30 to 9 when the road goes quiet. They don't have to get to work (they may well work but not office hours)and seem completely oblivious to other people trying to get a space (with small children and lots of stuff), to people trying to get past them on the pavement to get in through the gate, they will move a couple of inches if you say excuse me and then swiftly move back.

They just seem completely oblivious to anyone else needing to park and drop off or get past them, but they do this EVERY MORNING.

Today I was just so tired and not feeling well and had to carry lots of boxes of craft stuff for my small child and one of the mums clocked me driving down as she got INTO her car right outside the gate, I was like 'thank fuck, a space', then she just put something in her car, and got out and RESUMED HER PAVEMENT HOGGING CHAT.

Do you think I am being a pain in the arse to nicely email the head and ask if they can send a generic message about dropping and moving on to ease congestion? Or what can be said? Or do I just suck it up for the next four years? They are so clearly oblivious to it since they did it all last year and now this (I genuinely have no idea what they find to talk about all the time so intensely, like a real good gossip level for ages).

Aarrgh why can't they just THINK 'gosh it's quite busy here, we should go and get a coffee somewhere' (approx 500 coffee shops in our tiny town, numerous nice walks, playgrounds etc).

I just mentioned the cars makes because they're such giant ones, it's not like they're neatly tucking in a honda jazz.

Use your words and ask them to move?

This would make me fucking furious too

Yes but she shouldn't have to ask them! That's the point - people shouldn't be so wildly oblivious/ selfish/ inconsiderate of others.

It's really hard to describe but it's just such a small community you just can't. Everyone is so nicey nicey. (I lived away for years in a place where I would have cheerfully bellowed 'for god's sake move'). The downside of living in a lovely interwoven multi-generational town where people reference things that you did when you were 17 etc.

And in fairness, it largely works as the same judginess stops most people from being pavement/spot hogging dicks, just not these guys!

We had this at my primary school - very busy residential area on an extremely cramped road with cars everywhere. It was chaos and it would be the same group that would hang out and chat through the whole drop off time. My dad found it infuriating as he had to get to work so would have to park a 10 minute walk away to drop me off making him late for work. Loads of parents complained about it but I can't remember anything being done I'm afraid.
I think an email would be good. My kid's school are very very good with things like this and would send an email or put someone on "patrol" to make sure it stopped.

Have a quiet word with school. I reckon they’d help. Being told off by a teacher works at all ages, I find!

Thank god it's just me. I can't even nark about it in person as they will inevitably say 'oh that's my cousin/childhood best friend/mum's beloved goddaughter you're talking about'.

Aargh why didn't I stay in the nice anonymous city where people bawled each other out with no negative consequences.

Why don’t the Marshalls ask them to move on? Or the school?

Marshalls are at one of the secondaries further down the road. Honestly think they are actually their to stop their pupils being mown down.

THERE not their so irritated my spelling has gone.

Our school has a walking bus. So you stop at the end of the road, kids get out and are met by a member of staff and walked in.

Talk to the Head, ask them to help.

Our Headteacher got so fed up that parents were ignoring the constant emails he sent out that he arranged for the traffic warden and the Community police to make a couple of visits at drop off time. Solved the issue for a while.

Ask if they can introduce a drop and run zone with staff members directing the kids in?

We had this at my primary. It was so so so annoying and no matter how many emails the head sent out nothing really changed.

The only thing that helped was the very rare occasions when a teacher would come out and move the cars on. We had a drop off zone where you were not allowed to park in. But of course some did and it caused mayhem. But they were selfish pricks and did what they wanted. Sorry bit to be more helpful!

I suppose you could ask them so nicely to move?

Email the school. Go to the next parents council meeting and ask about getting that part of the road marked as a drop off zone. Email the board of management too. We had this. Very similar circumstances, two primary and one secondary school on a residential road but buses for other two secondary school parked on the road too. Havoc. Each school sent out a staff member to monitor the situation each morning. Drop off only zones marked. One way traffic only introduced. It does help that the Garda station is on the road too.

At our local rural school it is quite usual for the head to send out pleas to parents in the newsletter asking them to amend how they park. Many park up in the local pub car park and walk down to alleviate congestion.

I think it is entirely in order for you to email the head, explain the problem ask and if she/he can add something to the newsletter to ask that parents please drop off their children then leave immediately to avoid parking problems.

I’d be furious too.
And I’d email the head too.

Now I’d also wonder how you can use the ‘community’ to put pressure on them. Ok you can’t tell them to fuck off. But surely, you can drop hints etc to the right people … so it will come back to them?

Okay great. I'm going to email.

The thing is (why I wanted the mn view) is I don't WANT any confrontation, bad feeling, playground enmity. I just want them to move on in a timely way. Even a bit of chat would be fine just not the fucking seeing other parents indicating because they think you're (finally) going to shift it and then calmly just getting back out of the car and resuming the chat! WTF!

And I guess sometimes I do wonder (probably because I worry too much what people think) why on earth can they see all the other mums and dads struggling round them and it never occur to them ever?

Although I guess in a world where people do really heinous things, wondering why some others do slightly selfish things is a bit pointless.

I do often wonder how to be one of those people who can influence thought like that, but I just don't think I have the necessary top-level social skills to do that, although there are definitely those around here that do. That's why I'm scared to kick off - I know of a mum in another primary school locally who did get completely ostracised (ironically by the churchy posse and their surprisingly long social reach) because she lost it and told someone to fucking move one morning. She has still not lived it down years later.

This happened at the school at the top of my road. The Head had to go out to stop parents who were threatening the traffic warden. We are in a nice area in a small town in Devon, I grew up in an inner city slum and people were better behaved.

At the school my kids went to, long time ago, part of the home school agreement was you wouldn't park in the road the school was on so the issue was dispersed round local roads. It also made it safer for kids crossing the road outside the school. Of course the downside is everyone had to walk a certain distance but at least it felt fair and safe.

I totally feel your frustration and would hate this too, but if I've understood it correctly they aren't doing anything wrong. There's parking spaces for their cars, they get their early enough to park in them. Their cars are big, I hate that too, but it's their prerogative. Whether they stood chatting all that time or they left and someone else parked in that spot, the spot would be parked in. To say they need to go and chat in a cafe is not the school's or anyone's business. Very different if they were parking illegally and making things unsafe, but really they're just bagging the best spots and sitting in them, which is annoying, but I don't see how it's something people can interfere with and ask them not to. If someone else wants the spots, in a nice small car, they could get there earlier.

If it's a problem to have these spots taken by big cars, they should put yellow zig-zags across that whole section. Our primary has had the whole road made off-limits to non-residents during school drop-off/pick-up hours. Which of course just bumps the problem down the road to the surrounding area. But I'd say the only reasonable solution is to stop anyone parking there because you can't stop people legally parking there and going about their own business even if it's inconvenient to you and everyone else.