To think that if you object to parents collecting their children from school...

[EvilTwins]

...you shouldn't buy a house near one?

My DCs attend a large and popular primary school, built in the 1950s, which is at the end of a cul-de-sac in the middle of a large, privately owned, mostly 1950s and 1960s housing estate. The school has asked parents not to park on the actual cul-de-sac when they're picking up their DCs, and this is adhered to. However, it means that parents park their cars in neighbouring residential streets. Obviously everyone arrives at pretty much the same time, so there is a 20 minute period, twice a day, when the three or four streets surrounding the school are full of parked cars. About twice a term, we get letters home telling parents that local residents have complained about this. We're never offered a solution.

This only really affects me on a Friday, as my DCs go to after school club Monday-Thursday, but even considering that, I'm starting to get fed up with the letters home telling us off.

So AIBU? The school must pre-date the majority of the residents. If you choose to buy a house within spitting distance of an enormous primary school, shouldn't you just accept that parents might need to park in your road to drop their children off?

Mcdreamy - no, you should get the bus. If there isn't a bus tje school is in the wrong place.

My parents live on a small estate with a primary school. They bought the house brand new in 1970 when the estate was built, this was also the year the school opened. So of course they knew the school was there - and obviously it was perfect when I was young.

However.

In the 15 years since I was there the school has close to doubled in size. It's also been building up more of a reputation as a very good school, so more parents are trying to get their kids in from further away, so they have to drive rather than walk. During term time, the entire estate completely clogs up twice a day. It's ridiculous. The parents park in people's driveways, they block people in - one elderly couple had to put a chain across their drive as parents in 4x4s using it to turn around was starting to crack the concrete. The parents put into place a 'one-way system' of driving around the estate, and shout, beep and swear at any resident who dares to drive the other way, even if they live close to the entrance so unsurprisingly don't want to drive around the whole estate before they can leave (there's no official one-way roads, that's just how the parents prefer it).

The estate is all bungalows, so mostly elderly people - it's not like there are many families clamouring to live there despite the good school, as the housing isn't generally suitable (it worked for my parents as I'm an only child and my dad personally built an extension). Residents suffer because of inconsiderate parents and are abused if they complain.

Of course if you live on a road with a school (and I do) you should expect traffic at drop off and pick up times.

I really do not think that that is the issue for most people, it is the inconsiderate and sometimes dangerous/illegal behaviour by some of the parents. The huge sense of entitlement some of them have and the abuse they can dish out. Cars being parked badly or illegally, double parking, parking across people's drives. Doing 20-point turns over the pavement, parking on the pavement.

I know that some people have to drive to school, but as another poster pointed out, if you can sit in your car outside the school for up to an hour, you probably had time to walk.

It also annoys me that they can park for free on the road, but the residents have to BUY parking permits for their own cars, visitor parking permits and additional books of parking tickets for one off use.

At the school my dds go to it is pretty much the same story. We walk - it is about two thirds of a mile, takes 10-15 mins, but a lot of people drive and the roads around the school are a nightmare. The local Asda offers parents the use of their carpark, but most people won't walk the 250 yards. Sorry, but that is just damn lazy.

I think since we've all been given 'choice' to go to non-catchment schools, and given that many mums have to be at work for 9, many more people need to drive than when we were at school. Also, (certainly where we live) you don't get free travel unless your nearest school is more than three miles away - but anything more than 2 miles is a long way to walk with heavy bags, in the rain, maybe in the dark, or when there are dodgy roads to cross. But bus fares are expensive and don't always follow a convenient route, so people find it cheaper to drive two or three children than put them on the bus.

I don't think its the drop off/pick up that is the major issue, its the selfish, twattish driving/parking that probably annoys residents and I have seen it first hand when dropping DS off to school

We only live down the road and most days I try to walk there and back but if its pishing it down then I will drive as I fail to see why DS should walk in pouring down rain and then have to sit in school all day

I park sensibly and considerately but a lot of other parents don't - they take up two spaces, park on zig zags, they zoom down the road/around corners and don't seem to have any sense of road safety given just how many children are walking about

Added to which there is a building supplier depot near the school and frequently, massive trucks are trundling down a road and straddling two lanes..its chaos at drop off and pick up, especially in wet weather and I can see why residents get annoyed

I think it is sometimes a mixture of inconsiderate parents and stupid residents who contribute to the problem.

Most people at ds's school tend to walk so parkng issues don't tend to be a problem. However we have had a couple of letters sent home asking parents to remember that it is a residential school and to keep the noise down. It is only an infant school so I can't imagine that there is any anti-social behaviour.

I did read in the local paper that parking was becoming an issue at the local private school. Some moronic parents were even choosing to park on peoples driveways because they felt that they had the right.

YABU a bit.

Yes it is annoying to keep getting letters telling off parents for parking on the road but, on the other hand, so many parents park inconsiderately that they probably have to keep moaning.

I live in a very small cul-de-sac, next to an alleyway which is one of the 2 entrances into a school. I couldn't care less if people park in our cul-de-sac legitimately. Most are considerate although some come racing to do their 20 point turn at break neck speeds but if I see them I tend to get in their way and slow em down!

The one that really bugs me is the after school club mini-bus who parks on the double yellow lines every single day. He parks on a blind bend so nobody knows, when they are turning into the road, that he is there and I have nearly gone into him on a couple occasions. If he were picking up my children I would concerned for their safety.

The main entrance to the school is at the end of another cul-de-sac and parents are so immune to reason that the school does not allow anybody in the gates between 8.30 and 9.00am and 3.00 and 3.30 because there were always parents who thought the rules on not using the school site to turn round in didn't apply to them and the safety of the children on the school site was being put at risk.

It seems for, parking for the school run means the suspension of all parking rules and regulations in their heads because they don't want to be late or inconvenienced. It really brings out the worst people.

If it's your catchment school or the one that was allocated to you by the LEA if your catchment school was full, and it's more than 2 miles away (for infants - 3 miles for juniors) you should be entitled to LEA transport.

Not saying that helps everyone, but I'm always amazed by the number of people at DDs school who are entitled to school transport, don't use it, and then moan about parking !

The school parking thing really pisses me off, i het so angry about it.

We live really near a tube station, dh gets the tube to work, i get the tube into uni, we walk/bus any other bits of our journey.

But as my reception dd was allocated the ninth closest school to our home, which is about 2 miles and i have to drive to do the drop off and dh to do the pick up.

The parking is atrocious, all the things mentioned above, road blocked, cars parking on both sides on zig zags and then other cars stopping in the middle of the road between two parked cars.

I would love the school to implement a system like madame Deathstares

YABU, Why should they have to put up with parents parking in their street twice a day.
Sometimes thse cars will be there for a couple of hours as the parents go off to shop or chat with friends. I know as this happens near us,
Walk the children to school

I don't think the council ever really does anything about it either - well I don't think they know what to do. On my parents' estate, there have been lots of talks between residents, the school, the parents and the council. As a result, guess what the council have spent lots of money on?

?

Chicanes! All the way round the estate! Speeding has never, ever been an issue ? the issue is parking. Everyone involved knows the issue is parking. So who exactly decided it was better to do something than nothing and spend council tax money making it harder to park?!

my elderly aunt is often blocked in by cars parking across her driveway and right up onto the pavement. it's appalling, tbh. she was so upset the other day as she literally could not get out of her house to get to a doctor's appointment. utter fuckers.

Our local council had the bright idea of making our road single yellow lines with no parking between school drop off and pick up times (it has an alley which is leads to the local primary).

This means that residents are no longer allowed to park near their homes and have the nuisance of having to move their cars around the block to park come 8.30 am, only to make way for the bloody ignorant parents who think the scheme was to clear space for them, ignore the lines and park up on the pavements anyway.

And don't even get me started on the parents who allow their darlings to throw sweet wrappers and drinks cartons in the curbs before they pull away...

Thecoalition What bus?

in our parentmail newletter Head talked about parent seen by off duty police officer letting child out of moving car!!!

YAB (slightly) unreasonable

I have three schools near me - 2 primaries and a secondary and it can get quite hairy at pick up and drop off time. Knew they were there, don't mind at all, but...

It is frustrating although personally I don't mind the congestion so much (you just need to be patient - something lacking in many of the parents dropping their kids off), it's the REALLY dangerous and inconsiderate driving eg. double parking and blocking a main access route then not being reasonable about allowing any traffic to move and driving quite fast and aggressively through a tightly congested mass...BUT no different from any school car park I've ever seen.

Parents often seem to think that once they've dropped their own dcs off then anyone elses are fair game...and I've seen 2 kids knocked down at schools due to this inconsiderate driving...and fortunately not seriously hurt.

I don't think people would mind so much if there was a bit of consideration and very good manners, plus a bit of common sense and slowing down.

I used to live near the school my DC's go to. I knew when I moved in that we would get traffic during school run but what I didn't expect was ...

People turning up at 2:30 for a 3:15 pickup and parking on double yellow lines so their little darlings didn't have to walk more than a couple of feet (and I know full well the two mothers who did this when I lived there lived well withing walking distance of the school and were SAHMs).

My driveway being completely blocked on many occasions by cars being parked across it.

Ashtrays being emptied onto my driveway (seriously, a guy used to park across my driveway, on the pavement, and empty his ashtray out while he was waiting) and sweet packets etc being thrown onto front gardens in full view of parents who would totally ignore it. I would never let either of my children drop litter, let alone throw it onto someone elses garden.

Being sworn at for asking said man to move so I could get my car out of the drive (he scared me so in the end I would avoid going out if he was parked near my house).

Parents parking totally across the pavement so that anyone else had to walk across my front garden to get past the cars (was all open plan frontages). And the total lack of awareness from other parents that they were actually walking across my garden, I know they shouldn't be expected to walk in the road when the pavement was blocked but most of them didn't even seem to worry that they and their children were walking over my front grass.

So many cars would be crammed into the limited spaces that quite often there was no room to manouvre off driveways so even if the driveway appeared not to be blocked you couldn't get the car out.

So basically, it's not the traffic as such that gets local residents backs up, it's the total lack of consideration and the abuse you get if you try to point this out that is upsetting.

We lived in a cul de sac,with a school at the end and I didn't mind parents parking in the road - if they parked properly.But that's the thing - if. As so many other people have said,some parents park entirely selfishly with no thought at all for anyone else.
Parents would grind to a halt at the end of the road and abandon their cars,they obviously assumed that any other cars belonged to other parents and so it was fine to block them in,and the number of people who, when asked politely "could you move your car please,I need to go out", would say "oh,I'll just be a minute" and then vanish for 25 minutes to gossip at the school gate was amazing.
It's the assumption that because it is more convenient for them that whatever they want to do must be ok regardless that is so annoying.

YANBU providing none of the parents park across drives, shout, double park, reverse into residents' drives or drop litter.

We once looked at a house in the same road of a local school. It was lovely but we decided the potential hassle meant it wasn't viable. And it was more expensive because of desirable catchment.

leaving aside the issue of working parents who have time constraint issues, it seems odd to me that so many people have to send their kids to schools that are too far to walk to. If the schools are oversubscribed within a tiny catchment area, surely the majority of those parents should be able to walk as the distance won't be far. What I mean is, this seems to be an almost universal problem at every school but surely most kids in most schools must live pretty close and if those parents could do something other than drive, the pressure on space and parking wouldn't be so great for those that do have to. Am not at the school stage yet so genuinely confused about this one. I do know that the parents at the secondary private school I work at cause mayhem on the medieval streets round my school in huge cars and block the school gate so that little darling doesn't have to walk even a few feet. There is a public car park 5 mins away or another option about 10 mins away which for all but maybe the first years carrying 12 subject's worth of books would be more than do-able but they just insist on driving right up.

I agree ? one of my Dad's many rants is that you shouldn't send your child to a school that's not within walking distance. I come from a fairly small town and it's got five or six primary schools ? any one of them would have been walkable from my house, and the same is true for any house in the town. Working parents, or ones with several children at different schools, is one thing, but SAHPs really don't have an excuse not to walk in a situation like that. It's just not convenient ? and apparently neither is respecting the residents when you drive in.

YANBU. We have parents parking twice a day and it does make it difficult to get out of the drive, but we knew it when we bought it. They need to park somewhere.

YANBU my DD is not old enougth for school yet, but we live very close to the one she will be going to. What gets up my goat is seeing parents who I know only live around the corner from me. Well within 5-10 mins walking distance from the school, yet they drive to school to drop off and collect.

My sil being one of them!!

I'm in favour of a legally enforced 400 yard exclusion zone around all schools for the same period of day as the lollipop people function i.e. about 1/2 hour either saide of the bell. Obviously it would exclude children and parents with SEN but the rest of us would have to lump it. And many who currently drive 1/4 mile would decide to walk (or get their Year 4+ child to walk- it would be much safer in many instances without all that traffic) cos it was not much less hassle.
Comparitively few people NEED to drive their dc to school and almost none need to park just outside. Yet we do. Because we can, and that makes us lazy.

Oh, and before someone moans at me, residents would of course be allowed in and out - but would need a sticker in their windscreen.