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)

I drive sometimes and, when I do, I just park farther away. Some parents have realised, however, that the cameras only point one way in these schemes. So they get there before the time and wait for 30 mins or so because the camera only catches them on the way in. So if time says no parking 8.00 to 9.00 am, they drive into the road at 7.45 am and just wait.

You'll be able to get a permit for her taxi I expect, or surely you can just walk her to the end of the road? at our school the closed bit isnt that much. Deliveries you can just book outside of the 2 hours max a day that the road will be closed. A district nurse will get a permit. Why dont you see how it works in practice and think around the issues before moaning about it? it is so much safer for the kids to not have to deal with the idiots who drive up, stop in the middle of the road, try to turn in the road and generally drive really badly!

I'm always astonished by the people who will drive to our school. We have a very large car park (free, no restrictions) a few minutes walk away, plus a local pub that allows parents to use their car park for the school run, also just a few minutes walk away (straight down a path to the school). Yet parents will try and park as close as possible to the school gates, driving over verges (churning them up in the process), blocking driveways, parking on bends, blocking roads. I live right next to one of those carparks, and will regularly see parents drive past me as I leave my house, and then arrive at school to find them at the gate still unloading their children from the car - so they could have easily parked in the carpark and walked the last few minutes.

Its also the parents who will get to school 20/30 minutes before pick up in order to secure a parking space outside the school gate that make me laugh. If you've the time to sit there on your phone for half an hour, why can't you just walk the 5 mins from one of the nearby carparks? (And I see the same ones there every day, so its not that they've got to rush of for an appointment or anything).

So I honestly think that having those roads around the schools closed would make a huge different for us - parking 'the next road over' in this instance would be the same as parking in the nearby carparks, so perhaps people wouldn't be so inclined to clog up the residential streets.

@Tellmeifimwrong it's a primary school so most children don't travel by themselves. There is nearby bus stops - those that do use i
the bus they always PACKED ! Several stops on the route the buses don't even stop because they are full.

The sensible measure is to have the school in a larger residents' parking zone, which ought to keep cars off the neighbouring streets.

Many parents bleating about how "it's too far to walk!" are just lazy.

Let parents of disabled children park in the main school car park if necessary.

Cycling is a thing. In many smaller towns, and quite a few larger ones, it is even reasonably safe.

I don't really get why the vast majority of secondary school students would need driving to school. When I was at school (with a large catchment including several villages, and only a couple of decades ago) pretty much everyone came in on foot, on the train, or on one of the many buses the school provided. Or have school buses ceased to exist?

Primary schools should always be in walking distance except in extremis, but for the government's decision to prioritise "choice" over the environment and children's health.

My kids went to a school where it was part of the home school agreement that you didn't park in the road the school was on. It doesn't create the same problem for other roads as the parking is more spread out so instead of 100 cars on school road people will park on a nearby road on their way to school so if little Mary lives west of the school her mum will park on a road to the west, little Johnny lives north or south or east of the school so his mum will park somewhere in their direction. You end up with 25 cars in each of those roads instead of the 100 in the school road. Depending on the road set up there might even fewer cars on any given road.

But it's a great scheme because I hated going down the road with my toddlers and loads of cars doing 3 point turns, so much better now. Fuck knows how all these 4x4 drivers get disabled permits though, so they can drive down, clearly a scam going on there. Never seen so many people with 'hidden disabilities' in my life ...

School streets exist to make the road outside school safer for pedestrians and to reduce pollution outside the schools.

We have a two school streets where I live. I think the intention is great but of course it does push the cars on to other roads. Where we live, many parents drive their children to school not because they live far away, as the catchment area is tiny, or because they need to drive on to work (we know this as the residents association surveyed parents on this) but because, ironically they want to protect their children from cars and see it as safer than walking to school. I also doubt these parents realise that unless they are driving and EV they are exposing their kids toanyotr times the pollution they would experience outside the car as these short journeys are most polluting.

I have seen these same parents in their massive cars endangering other people's children with their dangerous manoeuvres and thoughtless parking in a desperate attempt to get as close to school as possible. There is something about being in a car which often seems to put the driver in a protective bubble and stops them connecting properly with what is going on outside their car.

Until we change the culture around driving and truly put pedestrians and cyclists first by understanding and accepting their relative vulnerability no amount of schemes will make a difference.

No scheme here but I’d have to drive regardless. I’d just park in the next street. So it just shifts a problem for 1 street of residents, to the next street. However I could see it being much safer for the children. We have markings all over our school screen and people literally pull up to park ON the path as you’re walking on it 🙃 if I can’t get parked safely, I park further away anyway but some people don’t care.

You try walking along a busy dual road for a mile and back with toddlers when it's pissing down with rain.

@Sanch1 we use Uber because the having the same taxi each day (which would be exempt) didn't work for us.
Yes we can walk to the end of the road - but that means the taxi will have stop in an unsuitable/unsafe spot (which will ironically probably be full of the parked cars of the primary kids) and it's a main road.
That's not a total disaster for us - it's just mostly annoying.

We lived opposite a primary school. Next door neighbour but one used to load her kids into her car, drive across the road, unload the children, then drive to work. It would have been quicker to just walk them over with the lollipop man and come back before going to work.

These schemes are not fair on residents. But in the olden days, from four and a half I walked a mile and a half each way to primary school, then two miles each way to middle school from eleven, the cycled four miles each way to upper school from thirteen. In all weathers.

As others have said it's not about stopping people driving, although that would be a nice side effect. It's about safety and reducing harmful pollution. I get so angry when I see people idling outside the school gates.

My main question about the scheme isn't whether it's good or bad but more if it actually DOES stop those who drive from driving.

@Sanch1 I am not "moaning" as such.
I just wanted to know if it actually makes any difference.

I live a 45 minute walk from the school and I have to go to work so I drive and park a couple of streets over. It annoys me that there is a large car park next to the school that is locked up and no one can use. I think it belongs to the council.

I'm still not sure why you're asking, as that's not the purpose of the scheme. If parents are going to drive then restricting parking directly outside of the school isn't going to stop that.

It becomes easier to walk / cycle if you aren't battling cars doing stupid things at the front of the school. So yes, it can decrease car use, but not in the way you'd think.

I don’t think it does stop people driving, and despite the fact that many people here seem to have in-depth knowledge of the business of those driving in their own area, in the case of my children’s school the vast majority of parents who drive aren’t doing it for shits and giggles. that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good thing for other reasons, but I don’t think it will stop parents driving

i live on a school street. The parking here is horrendous, people parking on corners, roundabouts, double yellow lines and across our dropped kerb. One morning I needed to take baby DS to hospital as an emergency and I was blocked in by a parent doing drop off 😡
A PSPO was put in place and the field that the school is situated in had a pathway put in and the car park extended to encourage parents to park and walk through. The PSPO made a real difference but it went out the window during Covid and hasn’t been put back in place, so parking is back to how it was before.
It’s really not that much of an inconvenience for parents to park 1 mins drive and 2 mins walk away in the field car park, but obviously they’d rather park like arseholes to be 30 seconds away from the entrance.

@Whinge exactly that's my point.
Those who drive will still drive.
Residents have to adapt their lives around these restrictions.
It all seems pointless.

It's a 6 month trial so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

@Needmorelego I can see that the taxi for your child is annoying but I think generally residents can get exceptions. It may be worth enquiring in the B planning stage. They generally have lots of consultation.

Also don't think it's an issue for deliveries. IME the street is closed for 45 mins to an hour twice a day so plenty of time outside that to get your shopping delivered.

I live in London and primary school catchments tend to be less than half a mile so there really is very little reason people need to be driving to school. We're the last house in catchment and it's a 10-12 minute walk.

People do still drive and park on nearby roads but it still makes the school road much safer for children. And less polluting as a Pp said.

The idea of this is that it also diverts through traffic. It’s not just about parents driving to school. So it makes the road outside the school safer for kids to cross and less polluted. I’d love this where we are. For us the major problem is not parents parking but commuters whizzing to work, wing mirror inches from my 5 year old’s head

@Stowickthevast the consultation has been and gone.
It was a terrible consultation. Many residents were not informed including myself.
I only discovered about it as I still have links with the primary school.
It was practically kept a secret 🙁