To be cross with the parents who park over our drive

[Crispspsps]

We live opposite a private Catholic co-ed school. It seems like an ok school from what i have read. There is a main entrance on a main road, but there's a back entrance opposite our house. Every morning between 7.30 and 8.45 there is a continuous series of cars that stop over our drive to let their kids out, blocking the path, and almost continuous traffic up our road.. Then there are others who at 3pm park over our driveway for 10 or 15 minutes while they go in and do whatever and we can't get into our drive. I emailed the school about this last year and got a very nice reply that they would ask parents to be more considerate, but nothing has changed. I walk my kids to school each morning. I know everyone can't, but am pissed off with the traffic in my residential road because of this school, It's a small street. I don't want my 4yo to be smacked in the head by a Range Rover door opening, like he was this morning. Yes, I know I will get biscuits for this, but FFS it pisses me off.

Your son got hit on the head by a Range Rover door opening on him? .

Did the person at least apologise?

I'd be very unhappy about that!

I had an issue with someone parking on my drive for the local school so I whenever I saw them I would instantly be in my car nose to nose with theirs with my hand solidly on the horn and just drive round the block and come home again. They soon stopped :)

Did this in all states in a towel once

Can I ask why it being Catholic, private and co-ed has any relevance to your story?

Some good advice, thanks. I will contact the school again. No justifiable issues with volume of traffic - all schools cause traffic - , and yes I knew the school was there when we moved here. It's the assumption that people can park for "just 10 mins" or whatever, without considering that those 10 mins might need to be when we need to get out or in. And this morning I did get riled by teenage boys leaping out of a car into my small DS as he came out of the house. On occasions some parents have knocked on our door and asked if it's ok to park for 10 mins while they go and sort something out in the school- to which we have always said yes if we are home and not about to go out. And LOL ImNotDancing. Not sure I'm that riled yet, but watch this space!

It's a small street. I don't want my 4yo to be smacked in the head by a Range Rover door opening

In these threads it's always a Range Rover, isn;t it? Like people with kids at private school never drive anything else. Would it be ok if he'd been smacked in the head outside a state school by the door of a Ford Focus?

It's simple really - okay to park your car across someone's dropped curb access to a private driveway and walk off? No.

Okay to pull in briefly without parking or getting out, just to set down or pick up passengers? Yes. Even on a double yellow line. Perfectly legal.

I understand that it is irritating and possibly constitutes bad manners but so long as they are not obstructing you from leaving your own driveway there's not much they are doing wrong. And I imagine they do it because they really don't have many other workable choices.

The problem with private schools in the centre of towns is that they often have children coming from a very widespread area so walking or getting the bus isn't possible, for a start. Most schools will lay on a private bus but because they are not state subsidised they are very very expensive, so if you've got several children it's far cheaper to drive them.

And sometimes if you've driven anything up to 20 miles to get there, and most of the roads in the immediate vicinity have parking restrictions then the last thing you are going to do is park half a mile away and walk. So all the parents are funnelled into the one or two areas where they can park, driving the residents nuts, or they are forced to pull in as near to the school as they can and ditch their children onto the pavement where it's then a short safe distance for them to walk.

It's annoying, I get it, but the simple answer is don't live right on top of a school. The same applies to a railway station, shops, busy doctor's surgery or anywhere else. People need to to what they need to do and so long as they are not breaking the law you have to suck it up.

My old school sent a letter home BANNING us from parking in a residential cul de sac at the rear of the school, where there was a small footpath leading directly to it, because the neighbours had complained of a similar problem to yours. I absolutely do not condone parking across someone's drive and leaving the car, that's just bad manners. But being BANNED from parking perfectly legally in the whole street, just because the neighbours are irritated by the influx twice a day for half an hour each?

Needless to say, no-one took any notice of the 'ban.'

I'd plonk my car over the drive. Or stand there during drop off time giving people the evils

We used to have a woman who would go outside at school run time and stand in the space outside her (terraced with no off street parking) house so that people could not park perfectly legally in it. She'd stand there saying she was saving it for a visitor she was expecting.

In my mind she is every bit as rude and unreasonable as someone who would knowingly park across a private driveway.

If they're blocking you in just put a note on their cars, perhaps with a nice flour and water paste to get it to stick telling them it's unacceptable - you could also call the council and ask if parking enforcement can do the rounds near the school at drop off pick up times

Have you a local Facebook group/page?

Start posting photos of cars and registration numbers.

It's entitled twats like Spottedsoon who get my goat.

We are such a fucking lazy race we all of parents seem to think it's okay to park where the guck they want at school time.

My solution that worked mainly for twats parking on the pavement was to email photos to the school, council and police. The school kept trying to tackle it and the local parking enforcement would turn to regularly.

I'd just keep reporting them to as many people as possible.

As a breed parents are the worst.

Should add if your DS is hit by a car it's a reportable accident. Make sure you do.

The best thing is for the school to assess how many parents will need to park at the school and work something out that is a compromise between them and local residents. It's called a Travel Plan. Most schools should have one.

What about using a chain across the driveway?

I also live in a street with a school. It was built several years after I moved into my house. So it is not always the school that is there first. And I don't have to "suck it up" when cuntish parents park across my drive when my car is in the drive, because they are the ones acting illegally.

Of course you don't, if they are parking illegally.

If they are parking legally, or just pulling over to set down or pick up, then I'm afraid you do.

The problem isn't just the parking. The school near us, also built after, has a parking problem but it's the dangerous driving that's the issue. The kids who live their wouldn't dare play or even go outside to cross the road between 8-9 and 2-3 because of bad driving.

Speeding, double parking, reversing without care...so many people get competitive for spaces, legal or otherwise, and behave like twat. Worse is that five minute walk away is a car park with 30 minutes free parking!

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The difficulty is that they are often not parking legally. If they park on both sides of the road there may not be room for a fire engine or other large vehicle to pass. Sometimes the road outside our house used to be gridlocked because of stupid parents parking wherever they wanted. They would give abuse if asked to move.

A few times residents arriving home and blocked the road totally until the parents parked over their drive moved - often they got abuse for this. One parent refused to move to allow an ambulance car to park to pick up a patient for a hospital appointment.

The solution - a local resident organised all residents to park on the road, legally, at drop off or pick up times - leaving no room for parents to park. After a few weeks of this and some abuse from parents they finally realised that they should park lower down the lane, where there are no houses or in the church car park which is left open for exactly that purpose.

There is an excellent bus service to our village. Most children (secondary age) live within easy walking distance.

If it starts to build up again everyone parks on the lane again for a few days.

The school was built in the 1940s and has been expanded substantially over the years. Ridiculous to tell residents who've lived here for decades to suck it up. We decided not to.

lovely I am not 'entitled' or a twat, thanks. I am just pointing out that parents of schoolchildren are bound to abide by the exactly same road rules as anyone else. Illegal parking and driving without due care and attention is not allowed. Legal parking and safe driving is. It really is that simple. I do not park illegally or dangerously (usually the same thing) and I do not advocate anyone else doing it. Whether perfectly legal and safe 'pulling over' or actual parking constitutes unreasonableness is a matter of opinion. But for the people who do it, it's usually a matter of perceived necessity.

I don't see why children and the parents of children should be treated as second class citizens when it comes to where they can and can't park (legalities aside) and whether or not they should walk. Lots of adults don't walk or cycle or take public transport to work when they could - I don't see the same vitriol directed at them.

JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE parents on the school run want to get as close to their destination as they can, as quickly as they can. Many parents are dropping off on the way to work so walking or taking the bus to school and then walking or taking the bus back again to collect the car or swapping to a different bus route is just not a practical or even possible option. Plus unless you are given free travel, buses are prohibitively expensive for a whole family when compared to the cost of driving.

If it is safe and convenient and the weather is ok and there is time to walk then I would almost always choose walk, and have done many many times over the years when I've lived within reasonable walking distance of school.

And when the weather has been fine I have often chosen to park in a further residential street rather than a nearer more crowded one. But that was when I lived a lesser distance from school and had the rest of the day to myself and nowhere pressing to be. Not everyone has that luxury. Once we moved to a school with a much, much longer commute there was no way I wanted to walk 15 mins from the the car and 15 mins back again after having just driven for 40 mins to get there and now facing a 40 minute drive back home - who would? Is my time less important than yours or anyone else's?

Take school out of the equation a minute and imagine that's you going to work, or to the shops or an appointment somewhere. Would you do it, when there is free, legal parking much closer ? Of course you wouldn't.

But I don't see what difference it makes whether I am going to work or to the shops or taking my children to school. I am entitled to park legally anywhere I like and I am entitled to pull over to set down/pick up anywhere that it's legal to do so.

The councils know that to extend parking restrictions even further out just pushes the problem to a different street somewhere else. And after a while, those people will start complaining. PEOPLE STILL NEED TO PARK. WE ALL NEED TO PARK SOMEWHERE. And what happens if you get there and there, prepared to do your 10-15 min walk and there is nowhere to park because everyone else is doing the same thing, and you are going to be late for school?

If the restricted area is widened way too far, meaning that parents might face a 10-15 min walk from their parking spot to school and then back again (adding half an hour to their journey when they might be on their way to work) then that is not going to encourage them to park further away from school, it's just going to encourage them to get as close to the school as they can, and hover over someone's drive, or park illegally and risk a ticket, because you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

Because they have no choice. You can keep moving the goalposts all you like but it is NEVER going to make the problem go away.

When I was kid we all went to the nearest school which was almost always within walking distance. And if it was rural then the bus was free. And very few of our mothers worked so they had the time to walk with us if we were too young to walk alone.

Life is not like that now. We are encouraged to apply for schools all over the place, siblings get separated meaning more pressure to get to two places in a short space of time, fewer families have a SAHP, there's the pressure to get to work on time - that's just how it is. No point in getting all huffy about it. Just accept that for many families walking is out of the question.

'Scotland' has not banned cars near schools, only one local authority has with a couple of schools. The rest of us have the same problems as England.

Oooh or a no parking wheel clamping in operation then buy a clamp.
Think how much money you could make

Well, none because this would be illegal.

I think the point of describing it as a private catholic school is that there is no catchment area and students don't necessarily live a walkable distance!

In our town, the congestion is around the private schools, the secondary schools and the catholic primary, which has the criteria of takings children who are baptised catholic over those living closest to school. That said, I've only seen cars stop over drives to drop off kids but never actually turn off the engine and park near any of the schools. There's always the one idiot stopping at zigzag lines at start of the school year though.

Ask the Local Authority to arrange a residents' parking scheme. And get them to police it on random days and give out tickets. Works well around here.

I believe that if you are baptised Catholic and wish your child to go to the closest Catholic school and it's more than three miles away then LA will pay for a taxi.

I think that's totally wrong btw, and a shameful waste of taxpayers money, but there it is.

You should only get your transport paid if you live more than three miles away from any school, not just the one of your choice. Just because your choice is based on religion doesn't stop it being a choice. You want the benefits of a bespoke education then pay for your own bloody transport.

Take school out of the equation a minute and imagine that's you going to work, or to the shops or an appointment somewhere. Would you do it, when there is free, legal parking much closer ? Of course you wouldn't.

The point is there is is a heck of a lot of illegal parking at school drop offs and pick ups by parents that think the world owes them a favour.

That's the point you seem to be missing.