Why do some people have a problem with parents driving their kids to school?

[VolkswagenBeetle]

I realise this up there with P&B spaces etc. but I'm bored so...

I'm not talking about people who park right across the school gate (who are annoying as hell), but people who drive their kids to school and park (properly). My dds' school is 2.2 miles away (just checked that on Google maps ). Atm DH drops me and the kids off at my dad's house (who lives around the corner from the school) at about 7.45am on his way to work, and we then walk the 5 minutes to school from there. But come September when he's being made redundant we'll go straight to school in the car.

It would take well over an hour for my youngest dd to walk to school, so it makes sense to use the car. I usually get 2 buses back home cos I'm a lazy cow walk back home when they're in school, and the same going to pick them up.

If school is new parking should have been considered. It won't have been, councils are twats.

(Our school has room for a car park, the village in general needs a car park. On both scores our various local councils are twats.)

I drive most of the short way to school, park and drop off dd then drive the two miles to preschool. It makes pretty good sense to me as the timings are tight and the five minutes I shave off are the difference between on time and late. On non preschool days we don't drive. I agree with others, it's not the driving it's the crazy parking that gets to me.

It won't have been, councils are twats.

They are not allowed to cater for cars - to make it more difficult for people to drive

I don't have a problem if people have to go a long way - and I include you in that. I have a problem with people who live close and still drive. A neighbour drives to school and often leaves before us but gets there after us because she has problems parking! Walking is healthy, good for the kids and we meet friends along the way so unless it is pouring with rain it is win-win, surely.

I drive the mile to school. From the outside, I look young and able bodied but in fact, I am young with terrible Osteoarthritis. During the ok/nice weather, I tend to walk it either in the morning or afternoon and drive the other one. I can't do an awful lot of walking without being in absolute agony. I wish I could, but I can't.

But I don't park across drives, or on zigzags, or anything else. Even when shopping, I make sure I have left enough room for others to get in and out etc. It is all about consideration. Sadly though, and I only said this last night on another thread, but there is too many selfish and impatient drivers around these days. Be that outside the school, park, shopping etc.

Bucking you are a prime example of someone who needs a space close to the school and has every reason to drive, but there are selfish lazy people who may be preventing those who really need that space from getting it. At our school there are probably about 15 'safe' parking spots withing 200 yards of the school, so people who are just taking the car because they can't be arsed to walk should perhaps think about the less able-bodied whose space they are taking.

People also park in the unsafe spaces too, too near the junction and on the zigzags and the bus stop, and one this morning (coincidentally the first time I have seen this) completely up on the pavement.

Schools should not be built with car parks. That just means even more people drive everywhere.

I've been to the US and seen the strip mall culture. It's ugly. Driving from shop to shop instead of walking, drive-through everything, supermarkets get so many morbidly obese customers they all have courtesy fat carts.

We live in a perfectly pleasant country built without motor cars in mind, and it would be nice if it would stay that way.

Pulay, i am absolutely with you of the issue of vehicle access on tiny tracks and town centre roads that were made hundreds of years ago. I will never understand how the inhabitants of places like Sherborne and Shaftesbury are not more one armed from the constant traffic touching you as it scapes past.

So many beautiful little market towns are so littered with zig zags, traffic lights, traffic calming blocks, no entry no exit no stopping signs, why the hell not just close it off except to emergency traffic and disabled access? I do like Malls by the way but in their place. Love the term "motor car" off to look for my wind in the willows. parp parp.

sorry, Poulay.

Time is an issue for many if they have somewhere else to get to. My SIL drops and picks up my son as my working day starts before and ends after the school run. She then has 10 mins to get from my sons school to her kids school. When I have a day off work my son and I cycle which he loves, school is about 1.5 mile away. However when other half has a day off he point blank refuses to entertain the idea of walking/cycling and definitely falls into the lazy driver category, I would imagine plenty of them exist.

The other day I was Ill and running late for work. SIL said she would drop me to the station after dropping all kids off. She parked about 5 mins walk from her kids school , a lot of people seemed to do this as it is a very big school, I waited in the car. Next thing I hear a woman's voice very politely calling out asking someone 'not to park there' as she was leaving the house any moment and it blocked her view. I was shocked at the attitude of the parent who continued to park, get her kids out of the car and would not look at or acknowledge this woman's repeated requests and went on her way. While she was dropping her kids at school this woman attempted to leave her house, which is on a main road, almost collided with another vehicle as she could not see what was coming from her left. She then got a mouthful from the driver of that vehicle and honking from all the cars backing up behind. The driver wanted her to back up into her driveway and she spent minutes apologising saying she couldn't see what was coming because of this car in the way and she couldn't back up because there were children all over the pavement on their way to school and she couldn't see who was on the pavement because of this car and he needed to back up. Eventually he unwillingly did so. I felt so sorry for this woman, what a lot of unnecessary stress to start her day!

Society has changed but when I was in primary school a crowd of kids use to meet on the corner of our road and walk together, without an adult the hour there and back. This was on the outskirts of London, not a rural area, we walked through a local estate, met a few more kids, had a fairly main road to cross the second main road had a lollipop lady. The walk certainly didn't do us any harm.

I do get hacked off with people dropping secondary aged kids at school. I can't see that is necessary at all. Navigating their own way there on foot, buses or train and being responsible for getting themselves there on time is good preparation for life ahead. Comment up thread about secondary school being 6 miles away, so might their first job be. My secondary school was 25 miles from where I lived and I spent on average 4 hours a day on the tube from the age of 11. I never gave it a second thought or felt hard done by, I wanted to go to that school and I just got on with it.

The roads run a lot better in school holidays, it is mad to think school runs cause so much chaos.