Why do people drive their kids to school??

[brightonbaker]

Every day My oldest DD 11 walks to school, she is at secondary school and it is about 8minutes walk away. There is one road to cross. I walk my younger DD 8 to school, her school is the same distance. I then get home and go to work, I'm lucky I can start at 9:30.
I think it is good for them to walk to school as it is a good start to the day, exercise, fresh air etc.
I have two neighbours with older DDs about 13 and 14 who I am quite sure have never walked to school, ever. So they leave about the same time as us and get back about the same time as its only 8 minutes walk and by the time they have found somewhere to park** illegally it takes the same amount of time. So why? Why are they doing this? one of the parents does not work so no need to rush and I'm not sure what the other one does.
Really gets on my nerves so thought I'd see if there are some legitimate reasons why people drive to a very local school ?

I love walking my DS to nursery, it's a great time to chat without distractions in the house. I can understand why some people need to use a car but I think most could walk when the catchment area is small.

I'm disabled. I'm one of those awful parents who parks on the double yellow lines, but legitimately, as I have a blue badge. Other parents do too, then get pissed off that they get ticketed and I don't.

I also work full time 30 minutes drive from home (about 18 miles away). To be in for 9.30 I need to go straight from school. I then pick him up from after school club 5 minutes before close so can't go home then walk to him.

DS is in year 6 but has ASD so I don't trust him to walk home alone yet. When he goes to secondary it won't be a problem as we can see that school from our kitchen. Currently we have to walk past it to get to his school.

To be honest I'd prefer to be able to keep walking him to school (currently I'm visually impaired so not driving or working) as it's helping me lose weigh, but realistically I know once I return to work it's not going to be feasible.

Because I work and it's a six mile round trip.

This thread is ridiculous. It's fine to drive your child to school if you are disabled; your child is disabled; you are depressed; you drop your child off on your way to work; your child's school is beyond reasonable walking distance or walking involves walking along a dangerous road.
The OP is talking about people who drive their DC to school which is in a short walking distance where none of the above apply.
I'm in London and the primary school that all my DC went to/go to has such a small catchment area that nobody lives less than a 10 minute walk away but there are still parents who drive their DC and I know for an absolute fact that none of the above exceptions apply.
FWIW we don't own a car and take one flight a year to Ireland to see DH's family.

This thread is the ultimate virtue signalling thread.

FWIW I used to live a 7 minute walk from dds primary. Sometimes I drove if it was raining and I felt ill and couldn't be arsed to walk and I wanted to stay in my pjs.

I obviously meant that nobody lives more than a 10 minute walk from school.

FWIW I used to live a 7 minute walk from dds primary. Sometimes I drove if it was raining and I felt ill and couldn't be arsed to walk and I wanted to stay in my pjs.

Then you, or people like you, are part of the problem, Hayesking, and the reason that my DS - and other people's DCs - have to be travelling to their schools when the air quality is so bad that there are official warning about it.

The air quality is perfectly lovely where we are thanks. Lucky enough to not be in a city but in the middle of the countryside.

What kind of ‘virtue’ do you believe people are ‘signalling’ by saying they walk ten minutes to school?

Given we are such an inactive nation as a whole I don’t think we are doing anything to help future generations by carrying on teaching them that just because there is a bit of rain we jump in the car for a 2 minute journey.

I think as parents we need to encourage basic day to day activity as much as possible and try to resist the temptation to just jump in the car.

How nice for you, Hayesking. Other people are not so lucky.

It's this "I'm alright, Jack" attitude which I cannot stand. And it's not even accurate - you might be alright, for the moment, but all you are doing is storing up a legacy of shit for your own kids to deal with (or suffer under) in the future.

But hey, you don't want to pull on a pair of jeans, so it's totally justified.

I think it is highly unlikely in RL that people don't occasionally drive to school when they could walk. I think in 13 years of doing the primary walk I drove probably once or twice a month, sometimes we had cakes to take and things to carry - our walk involves climbing stiles and muddy fields. Sometimes I just couldnt face it. I'm totally OK with it.

but all you are doing is storing up a legacy of shit for your own kids to deal with (or suffer under) in the future.

oh calm down. Do you usually catastrophise this much?

Then that's more understandable, Hayesking, and fairly different from your rather "I'll take the car when I want for micro-distances for stupid reasons" other post.

Feeling ill or occasionally just bloody well having had enough of walking with three kids are not stupid reasons. They are absolutely perfectly valid reasons, I don't have to fight everyone's ecological battles for them and I don't intend to.

Not wanting to get out of your pjs is a pretty stupid reason, though, no?

I once saw someone who lives a 2 minute walk away drive her DS to school for his first day and her DH arrived in a seperate car to see him off on his first day too - I appreciate that they both wanted to be there and were probably heading straight to work after but we are talking 2 streets away fom school!. For our local High School, it's not any faster to take the car as the walking route (over a railway line with only a people crossing) is a lot more direct. To take a car you need to go round the long way and potentially get caught in busy traffic etc. Most teens walk.

I've never owned a car, DS1 has an illness which means that he gets out of breath quickly, it's exacerbated by getting soaked in the rain or snow, we lived 30 minutes from his school, I couldn't afford a bus and he didn't qualify for the mobility part of DLA. I wish we could have driven or got the bus.

Not wanting to get out of your pjs is a pretty stupid reason, though, no?

Not to me, no. It happens very rarely, I work like a slave pretty much 360 days a year, I'm a good mum and a kind person. If the worst thing I ever do is drive to school because I am tired and have a rare morning off and can stay in my PJs, I am totally all for that. Go me.

Go you, indeed.

Nobody is saying that we have to be perfect all the time. I have repeatedly said this, in this thread and in other environmentally-related threads. But your first post was all "I'll drive if I can't be arsed to walk", so it was perfectly reasonable to assume you were indeed part of the problem. And if you are not? Great.

We walk to school, about 10mins each way... Probably about half of families do (or park in town and walk the last bit) the school issues about 30 permits a year for families with disabilities/reasons to drive into school, which is really good. A lot of the others probably live at a distance that could be walked, but would take a long time, which is fair enough as everyone is busy these days. I just get annoyed as PP have mentioned, with dangerous parking (blocking pavements so scooters and buggies are forced onto the road) and dont get me started on the dog poo!!!!!

I was always amused at neighbour from my old block of flats. He drove his dc to school and what with finding a parking space etc he would enter the playground at the same time as myself and ds after we'd walked there (took 10 minutes). It was the same on the way back as we'd meet by the lift.

I can understand driving if you've got somewhere to be afterwards though.

I drive DD to school every day and pick her up every day too, despite it taking a healthy adult 12 minutes to walk to school. This is because I have to drop her at breakfast club then go straight to work in the mornings. In the afternoons, I pick her up because she has a disability which means she could walk home, but it would take her about 30 minutes, and that would then be it for the rest of the day, she would be exhausted.

So judge me.

20 min walk (London), regularly pass people from our school waiting at bus stops or getting into cars. We've never been late. My boys start walking by themselves, crossing main roads, from last term of yr 4. It's part of their education.

DS1 always walked save on rare occasions he fell asleep again after being woken and we hadn't realised.
DS2 however goes to a different school 2 bus journeys away and in his first year at least had lessons staring 0745 meaning catching bus after a walk down an unlit lonely stretch of road before it got light in the winter. Having chosen that school for him and cut the journey time by 2/3 we chose to drive him there. Bus back though unless he was doing activities till 7pm when we felt he was more vulnerable on buses without all the other school kids.
He's older now, though so we take him less.