People who drive their children to school and "School Streets"

[Needmorelego]

Good Morning All.
I am after some honest answers about "School Streets" and driving to school.
The scheme closes roads outside schools at drop off/pick up times so people can't drive down the road and/or park there. This is supposed to encourage less cars outside schools.
Now - honest answers - if you drive your children and your school has one of these schemes have you actually stopped driving or have you just taken to parking somewhere else (like the next road over).
Thanks.
(not a journalist - it's just this scheme is being introduced where I live and it's going to be a pain in the arse for residents for various reasons)

We cannot get to school any other way, we can’t walk and there’s no public transport - where are parents supposed to park?

I don't think it's actually about reducing driving to school, it's about making the area outside school safer. They've done it at our local school and it's brilliant - it means I can actually cross the road with DS1 and a buggy without trying to see round double parked cars, or trying to work out if someone is stopping because there's a car coming the other way or because they're doing a drop off / pick up.

I live on the road nearest the school and I've noticed there are less cars because it used to be used as a short cut to get between two main roads, which it can't be used for now. It probably helps that there's a local pub car park that's free to use a couple of minutes walk from the school, and that's certainly busier.

I wish they would do this at our local primary (my kids aren’t there any more but I still want other young kids to be safe).

It is not just the parents who drive to that school (some won’t have much choice, but there a pub that offers a “park & stride” that no one uses), but also the parents driving down there as a cut through to the secondary school (to avoid traffic on the main road) make it really busy and quite dangerous/difficult for kids to cross by themselves.

sleepproblems
Somewhere safe and considerate 5 or 10 minutes walk away. That's all you need to do. Get your steps in.

Tinybrother · Today 09:39

like I say, it’s rare for people to go to the effort of getting children into the car and finding a parking space when walking would be quicker. You clearly live in an unusual area for it to be so common.

Could you re-read my post? I didn't say that it was very common, just that there were some.

I've never heard of this sort of scheme and it seems totally unfair to residents.

I routinely drive DD to school. I park in legal parking bays or, if they're full, in a local car park so I'm probably not the person who this scheme is aimed at, but overall, yes, if my access to the parking bays or the parking lot was removed, it's more likely that I would simply find somewhere else to park. It might mean a slightly longer walk to the school gate, but at the end of the day, I drive her because it's a 20 minute walk and I don't have time for that in the morning and I certainly don't have time for that on the way back as I often have conference calls at 9:00.

My daughter's school has had a school street for the last two years; on the whole it's been a massively positive thing. This is in London, so the catchment is fairly small and most parents don't drive to school already. The restriction means that there are fewer cars driving past the gates at busy times, which makes it safer for everyone. The parents who drive tend to park a bit further away and walk the last bit, which works out fine as they're not trying to turn around right outside the gates.

The only negative points have been the restrictions end before after school club pickup time, which isn't great when there's hundreds of kids leaving in the dark winter months. Also there's one parent in particular who persists in driving aggressively (she's often late and speeds up the street) and the school are reluctant to address it with her. But on the whole it's been really positive.

You can't park near our school, and i have to drive as we live very rurally. I park in a nearby car park and walk, there are 3 within a 5 minute walk of school. One is a supermarket so handy to park there if I need to grab milk on the way home!

So what then? You agree with me that it’s not the norm?

Interesting post, we live on a street with a school and it’s a nightmare and has got so much worse since we moved here(over 10 years). It’s so dangerous for anyone using the road at those times and the road starts filling up over an hour before school finishes so it’s not just 10 minutes. People literally drive their kids from one end of the road to the school and then back home again when it would be much quicker to walk!

I live opposite a school. Parents can park on the road but there are yellow zig zags right outside the school for around 100m. There's also a one way system in place which helps.

Maybe it's just my school, but the zigzag lines might as well be invisible for all the notice parents pay them.

Our local school was built with the intention that there would be a drop off/pick up zone and a turning circle, so that there wouldn’t be cars parked except for a few seconds. All that’s happened is that cars used the drop off as parking.

If the intention is, as it should be, to ensure safety, then that’s a good thing. Except it isn’t, because it moves traffic over, the children have still to negotiate it and it causes irritation for residents.

There can’t surely be any need for parents to sit in their cars with the engine running for half an hour before the end of school, but that’s what happens. Now that so many people are working from home, why is it so difficult to adjust the day to walk children to school and back. Of course, if the school isn’t within walking distance, that’s different and you have to drive, but it’s the lack of consideration for residents, other parents and children and the lack of safety that angers people.

We have one at our local school. It's on a cul de sac and was dangerous for drop offs. Much better now.

However there is a stretch of road outside the zone where people park up on the pavement to drop kids off - which is massively dangerous for schoolchildren walking on the pavement. I think surrounding areas should make liberal use of bollards!

I park in a public car park which is a bit of a pain but definitely safer.

It achieves its aim which is to make the immediate area outside the school safer especially for the Year 6 children who are allowed to make their own way to and from school. It probably is a pain for residents in neighbouring streets though.

DS's primary school was a 2 minute walk from a large supermarket, which is happy to allow parents to use their free carpark at pick up and drop off.

Parents only started using the supermarket parking when the school street was put in place.

So you can't drive to your own house twice a day? Or do you have a permit if you live there? I've not heard of this scheme.

Yes residents of the road are exempt

I am going to read all the comments and answer later. I am ironically on a late running school run.

Sounds like a good idea although I do feel for the people in the streets just outside of the exclusion zone now as the problem will shift to them.

When my kids were at primary the school had use of a large car park across the road. There was a light controlled corssing and also a lollipop lady to cross the road. People would still park dangerously on the road and inconsiderately on the side street by the school to avoid the 3- 5 minutes walk across the road. School drop off and pick up really does bring out the worst in some drivers.

Most parents drive their kids to my youngest's primary as we're scattered out all over the country side. We have had some issues with parking/the road being blocked, so in the mornings, we have a drop zone where the parents drive round in a loop, the kids bail out, and the parents drive out again (supervised by a teacher) - it works very well.

In the afternoons there's still a bit of a problem, purely because there's not really enough parking, so the school struck a deal with the local church to park in their carpark 5 mins walk away and about 50% of the parents do - mainly those with older children who can walk up to meet them. The others still line the streets.

They've tried walking busses etc. but the fact is the majority of the parents are dropping kids off on the way to work/picking them up and then off to curriculars so all you'd do by making us park a km away is piss people off.

@Tinybrother

You would be surprised how many drive under a half mile to school. Some are heading off to work straightaway, others I've heard say that 10 mins is too far for their children to walk.

Many I'm sure have reason but ultimately unless schools have parking, they are inconveniencing residents and something needs to be done. It's definitely got worse

Half of these kids could walk to school with a mate . A lot of these kids actually live in the area not far away . I know a couple of mums drive their kids to school because it was cold ! They were in year 10.

Our town was actually on the news on TV last week about this, featuring my old high school. My Dad used to get in trouble for waiting or dropping on the double yellows for me. At one point a police officer shouted at him, saying him waiting on the double yellows was going to lead to the death of a child.
At that point I was suffering with an autoimmune condition which had a polio type effect on my legs so I could barely walk and at times my legs would go into horrific spasms and it was unpredicatable when it would happen and I was very part time in school as it was.

Schools need to better think things out for disabled students (and parents).

All the new measures would have done,
would have meant I wouldn't have made it into school for 3 years. I couldn't walk 3 blocks. I couldn't walk to and from the bus stops or manage the steps on the bus.

Anyway, disabled students aside, all this ever does is move the traffic and congestion. And that's exactly what is happening at my old school. Lots of houses on the surrounding streets are now up for sale.

Where I live, the vast majority of people
need a car to get around, and they also need two full time working parents to put food on table and keep a roof over kids heads.

This school has no breakfast club or asc and it's now a 3-18 year old Academy (it was just a high school when I went). If children arrive before 8.30 they are turned away and there is no staff supervision until 8.45.

It's not feasible or practical to suggest 1000 parents can all walk their kids from home to arrive at school on time then walk back home, then drive or get train/bus to work. This is a commuter town. I've had to leave home at 7am to get in for 9am starts at work and my neighbours often have to leave between 6.30 and 7.30.

As a former teacher (now lecturer), I say myself that there is still a huge assumption amongst some staff (especially from heads and older governors) that there is one parent at home. I used to find it very frustrating.

My current workplace has flexible starts, anytime between 8 and 10 and finishing times are similar as long as you work your hours. I'd be fine if I had a child in nursery (and even better if it was our workplace subsidised nursery) but even with flexible start/finish and with only a 30 minute commute, I'd still need either breakfast club, ASC or a childminder to fit my hours in.

It’s AWFUL for residents who have to drive to work/their kids to other schools/have emergencies to get to etc etc. Was an absolute NIGHTMARE when my street did this. Thankfully residents are exempt from this nonsense now.