School Run Parking Nightmare

[MichaelFlatleyLordoftheDance]

I live in a small, rural village with a well regarded primary school in it. I live one street from the school, and every school day, morning and afternoon, the street absolutely fills with cars as parents drop off and collect their kids. I understand this comes with the territory of living near a school; however, there are no quick drops or collections - parents stand around chatting for sometimes hours at a time, leaving their cars congesting the street and their kids roaming around in gardens and driveways. The thing that really gets me is the cars are typically blocking driveways, double parked or abandoned well away from the kerb. When a parent is politely asked to move their car (by myself or other residents) they react in very rude ways. "Excuse me, could you please move your car, I need to leave for work and you're blocking my driveway" is met with "I'll leave when I'm ready" or "you should leave earlier then." This doesn't seem normal to me. Does anyone else experience anything similar?

I don't get it at all
People park so badly here, on a junction, the opposite side of the road from the school on a bend with no visibility

There is a free carpark next to the school, on the same side of the road which is always empty because they would rather block driveways and drag children across a dangerous road
Baffles me

"I'll leave when I'm ready" 😲

If I got that response from someone it would activate my petty as fuck mode.

I'd get as many of the neighbours as possible to all agree to park their own cars the full length of the street well before school run time.

get one of my uncle’s to have a word & then I’d never see them again 💀

Are your uncles the Kray brothers or something? 😆

I’d be scratching some cars if I got that response

I enjoy it when the Police do their parking enforcement. Usually the cars pull up on the double yellow line, police officer appears, and they move on. But sometimes they wait until the gates open to make their appearance and ticket the whole lot.

Unfortunately the cats are always back the next day.

I have some sympathy because there is very little parking... but this is pulling up over a double yellow line onto a pavement where children are walking to school.

Hi op, things like this make me so angry on your behalf! I don’t live near a school but I try to be as considerate as possible with parking when I pick up and drop off. The sheer entitlement though of some parents who park near the school absolutely infuriate me! There are ones with big 4x4 s who park opposite another parked car but park in such an inconsiderate way that they block the road so drivers cannot through and just sit their in their cars watching as drivers struggle to get through the gap. There are twats who park across driveways (arrogant fucks), then there are those leave their engines running and headlights on for 20 minutes or so while they’re sat in the car waiting to drop off and pick up - school have already had complaints about this by residents who are working nights and have come home and are trying to sleep but can’t because of multiple people parked on their street all running engines with headlights glaring into the windows! But they still continue to do it! Then there are those who park completely on the pavements because well… they feel entitled to do so and don’t give a shit about people who need to get past with pushchairs! I have no advice but it infuriates me.

Get yourself a Stinger like the traffic police have and lay it across your dropped kerb. Sorted.

Take pics of the cars belonging to rude parents and send to the school, for them to deal with. Lots of schools in London operate silent drop off, meaning you may not park near the school, designed to get parents and kids off their bums and walking to school.

At our local school they put in traffic restrictions and a one way street system do deal with this

Take photos of those not parked properly and send to the police, council, or in the worst cases, report the driver to the DVLA.

If you have to ask someone to move who is blocking your drive, give them 30 seconds, then call the police suggesting they might be drunk or on drugs.

This happens near our school as it's in a cul-de-sac, I can't believe how selfish some fellow parents are. The residents complain to the school and get the council to send parking wardens round at collection time, so might be worth talking to your council too!

Get in the car, hand on horn and death stare until they move.

Complain to the school.

We have this problem. The biggest issue here is the 20 odd cars idling for at least half an hour. I love walking into my house through wafts of fag smoke from these cunts as well. None of them can wait at the other end of the road where there’s no houses, it HAS to be as close as possible.

Also try contacting your local ward councillors (district and county if you have both) and the lead councillor with responsibility for highways in your area (referred to as the Cabinet Member or Executive Member or Committee Chair). Their details will be on your council's website or you can ring up the council's enquiry line and ask who they are. They have authority to make the council officers responsible at least look into it. And don't forget to use social media like X to complain. Majority of councils have communications teams that monitor posts about them and may well respond.

some of the suggestions 🙄

Video them and post on community Facebook page.

Ultimately they are public roads, so whilst it’s arsehole behaviour MNetters often remind those who post on here to complain about their neighbours parking their fleet of family cars on the road, or commuters using the street as a car park, or whatever, as long as their vehicles are taxed etc, are not preventing you from joining the highway from your driveway and there are no restrictions there’s not much you can do.

Parents who do this aren’t the kind of people who will park elsewhere if the school sends out a letter - they will only change if they are ticketed for parking on double yellow lines or in permit holders only bays.

Also in the U.S. and these threads always amaze me. Our school uses a car loop. When the car loop started to extend past the spot on the road the police had allocated the school was allowed to back up traffic, they sent out an officer and redesigned the school traffic flow immediately. It’s all very regimented and bothering the neighboring houses or businesses is absolutely unacceptable. The police will gladly hand out expensive fines.

The school sends out chastising emails if people start getting sloppy, like having their child in the wrong seat in the car, must be closest to the pavement, or not having the child’s name prominently displayed in the window for the teacher with the radio to read. A fast car loop is essential because we are slowing down the street outside the school.

there is a teacher with a radio stationed a bit away from the exit that reads off the names in car order. The oldest students serve as volunteers and walk the youngest students to the cars, open the door for them, and close the door. We have been at two different primary schools and both operated the same way.

It's not the school's responsibility.

There are cycle lanes around the local grammar school to encourage children to cycle to school and keep them safe. The parents just park in them.

I think that's the problem... school parking is no ones responsibility.

We haveca Primary school, Secondary school and college basically in a line. The Secondary school has a drop off lane. The College has bus lanes and a car park. But the Primary school has... parking for 7 cars. All other parking in the area is for private businesses and residents. So they park in the private parking and on the double yellow lines.

Making the parking bay drop off, with pupils supervised through the gate would help. Or using the community centre car park for that purpose (its on the school grounds, but car gates are closed at school times). Pick up would be more complex... staggered pick up times maybe? But its no ones responsibility.

To add... its a village school. Traditionally built just for a mitary base, its now covering another village plus copious new housing estates having gone from a 1 form to 2 form entry a few years ago.

I lived next to a school for years and found it a pretty good trade-off - quiet the vast majority of the time with two utterly predictable busy half-hours Mon-Fri for the two thirds of the year that school is open, with the second of those half hours some time before evening rush hour.

I do think schools could organise things a bit better though - most of them have space on the grounds to have a drop-off circle area which would mean people don't park on surrounding streets. Instead they all seem to be telling people not to drive which isn't the answer, especially given that the majority of parents are driving to work after drop-off so it makes no sense at all to walk there and back home and only then get in the car.

Glad you appreciated it 😜

My god that sounds like a lot of faff. Radios and escorts?