To support DS to break school rules?

[Woffa]

My DS's secondary school has issued a written ban on sixth formers driving to school and parking in the local roads nearby (even though there are no double yellow lines etc) to avoid upsetting the residents.
The bus fare for DS is expensive and the saving helps pay for his insurance.

AIBU to support him in ignoring the ban?

Why is it anti social? Any more than generally driving a car is antisocial? A person needing to get somewhere, using a mainstream method of transport, parking in (as far as we know) a similar way to tens of thousands of other individuals.

Why is it more antisocial to park near the school or park near your home, or indeed anywhere in between?

In the OP's scenario her ds wants to drive to school so he can do after school activities, and she wants to support that as otherwise she will have to go and pick him up. Either way there is a similar journey being made, so no difference to the costs or environmental impact. Either way there will be some inconvenience to people who live near the school.

What kind of a message does it send to our young people if we don't encourage them to challenge unfair or unjust scenarios/ rules?

I think we do them a dis- service if we just fall at the first fence.

It terrifies me that we are breeding a generation of mindless morons who because of society's conditioning will be unable to think and act when they come up against something terribly wrong.

This isn't what our fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers fought for.

Is it?

Seem to be plenty of mindless morons in our own generation, if this and many other threads are anything to go by.

I'm proud that my father was the sort of man who stood up for the little guy and would speak up if he saw injustice.

I hope I've fostered it in my family and my grandchildren.

Sometimes there's just too much rolling over and waiting for your tummy to be tickled in today's society.

What kind of a message does it send to our young people if we don't encourage them to challenge unfair or unjust scenarios/ rules?

It's fine to encourage them to challenge rules that they think are unfair. Perhaps encourage them to go and talk to the school and see if they can come to a compromise.

But it's not really ok to just decide you don't like a rule and therefore ignore it. That's not how society should work.

Actually thats exactly how it works when someone tells you you can't do something, the very first question you need to ask is: do they have any right to hand out this rule? And the answer here is no, they do not.
IF you choose to follow such rules, you're a mindless idiot.

Actually thats exactly how it works when someone tells you you can't do something, the very first question you need to ask is: do they have any right to hand out this rule? And the answer here is no, they do not

I'm just at a total loss to understand not only the ignorance, but the attitude of some people on this thread.

firstly, the rule is fair,

secondly the rule is legal.

it is people peddling this crap who are the mindless idiots,

you really don't have a clue, do you.

It's a "fuck-everyone-else-approach"

It seems to me the residents are guilty of that. "I want to be able to park right outside my own house, and fuck everyone else."

The arrogance is astonishing.

*firstly, the rule is fair,

secondly the rule is legal.*

It's neither. Get a grip of yourself.

Ha ha at it being fair and legal!!

It's no more anti social than anyone else driving to where they need to go and then parking legally.

As an adult (pretty much) it is up to your son to decide what he wants to do. He knows the consequences and is old enough to stick up for himself should the school try to punish him for this.

Frankly, the rule is stupid. It is incredibly bad policy for a school to have a rule that is unenforceable in any practical sense, and that is what this is. All that the pupils need to do is to vary where they park and they won't be caught. Unless of course the school is going to start sending staff to follow pupils at the end of the day, which is a ridiculous use of staff time and potentially gets them into very dodgy territory.

If you have one rule that everyone can flout with impunity and which the parents don't and can't respect, it devalues all your other rules.

As I've said before, schools are perfectly entitled to enforce driving bans, many do, and I have known more than one expel sixth formers for breaking the rule.

There is nothing new or unusual about these rules, and in my opinion far more schools should do it.

The single most likely cause of a teenage death in the country is the driving of a sixth form boy.

You can say it as many times as you like, you're still wrong!

If a person passes their driving test and is driving a roadworthy , taxed and insured vehicle then they can drive it wherever they like that is legal.

Any school who think they can enforce anything other than that, seriously needs taking to task on it.

Beggars belief!!!

There are a lot of little englanders on this thread who think everyone owes them a parking space and also that anyone can make up any rules they like as long as they personally agree with them.
It does beggar belief, but sadly there appear to be many of them...

Charis, no state maintained school can legally impose a permanent exclusion for breaking this rule.

Statistically the main cause of teenage death is in fact illness, particularly cancer. Undoubtedly far too many teenagers are involved in serious road accidents; but the point is that stopping them from driving to and from school won't realistically change that, because most of those accidents happen well after school hours. In fact, the risk of serious accidents decreases as new drivers gain experience, and one of the safest ways to do that is to do a regular commute.

And can park it wherever they like as long as its legal.

That's the law of the land. If the student or the student's parent pays the road tax they can also park it where they like as long as its legal.

He has the same privileges as the residents , the head teacher, the board of governors who all drive and own their own cars.

Interesting thread - I have this situation where I live but it's manageable currently. But there is no way OP can claim financial justification; if the child is insured as the main driver the insurance alone will be at least £700 for a 17 year old. If the child is not insured as the main driver that would be fraud.

I'm not wrong, schools can and do enforce this, and sixthformers are expelled, quite rightly so. Obviously there is a difference between school rules and law. many school rules are not ILLEGAL to break, but you can certainly be expelled from school for breaking them!

As i said before, it is just ignorance on your part, you have not come across these situations, so you don't know they exist.

All of the teen students killed in my entire career have been killed by sixth form boys driving. it is perfectly reasonable and common for schools to ban it.

You try explaining to an innocent 16 year old girl that her best friend is currently being cut out of the mangled wreck of her class mates bodies jammed into an upside down car outside the school, and that she is so seriously injured it is unlikely she will make it as far as hospital. You try ringing her parents and asking them to come and get her because she is hysterical, but please drive the long way round. You try crushing desperate hopes of her little cirlce of friends, "but miss, she is alive, isn't she, it is only the boys that are dead, she is still alive" and trying to explain that actually, some injuries just are not survivable, and could they please go home the long way, and we are trying to get her parents here in time to be with her before she dies.......

Driving bans are common, and quite right too, or there would be far more scenes like this. School is not the place for teens to test out their driving skills, either before, after or during the school day.

Please give us a documented example of a sixth former who was expelled for driving to school and parking legally near by.

You won't be able to.

And your overblown rhetoric is offensive and inappropriate.

ArgyMargy, the point about costs is that the OP's son already has the car and is therefore paying insurance irrespective of whether he drives to school in it or not. He would have to pay extra on top of that to travel via public transport or the school bus.

And your overblown rhetoric is offensive and inappropriate

so, I know more, and have experienced far more than you, but it is offensive for me to say so!

this is a new low in wilful ignorance even for MN

Charis1, surely your argument is an argument against young people being allowed to drive at all, not an argument against their gaining practice in normal driving by driving to and from school?

And I'm sorry, unless and until you can give the names of state maintained schools that have this rule and enforce it by permanent exclusion, plus those exclusion records, it's a waste of time continuing to assert that they exist.

You think you know more, however you know nothing about anyone responding here so you have no basis for your assumption. Take it elsewhere. You're wrong, you know it, and you're trying to sway the basic facts with emotional pleading. Inappropriate and offensive. And irrelevant!

No, the whole point is peer pressure from class mates leads to a massive drop in safety standards. Away from school is the place to build up skill.

And the relevance to this thread is yes, schools can and do enforce driving bans, maybe not all for the same reason, but they do.

Exactly the same as they ban other behaviour, which might not be illegal, but if the school bans it and you disregard the rule, you may well be expelled.

There is no emotional pleading, just telling you exactly what happened and what conversations I had last time I was in this situation. it wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. It is EXTREMELY relevant to a discussion on school driving bans. if you find it emotional to read, just thank God you only had to read it, not live it.