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 ?

Maybe the parents drop off their kids and continue on to work, shopping, gym etc. It doesn't affect you, find something worthwhile to be interested in. In the words of Anna or is it Elsa Let it go.

My MIL drove my daughter the 2 mins to school this morning then complained the traffic was awful

NannyRed, if you'd read any of the thread, you'd have seen many posters - including me - point out all the ways in which people making unnecessary car journeys does, in fact, affect them.

Nanny - did you actually bother to read the OP?

Ok, so according to govt stats, in 2014 around 83% of the population of England were living in urban areas. That's 46 million people even without figures for the rest of the UK. Even if many of those town and cities have poor public transport, I think it's a fairly conservative guess to think that at least half of the population of England has reasonable public transport and schools within walking distance? I don't know what percentage are of working age and, of those, how many may have health or mobility issues, a long/difficult commute, or have other reasons why they can't avoid driving, but there must be a few million people who actually could make changes to their lives which, added together, could have a big impact on everyone in terms of safer air quality and, even more importantly, a planet that is more likely to remains hospitable to human life. Those are the people this thread is aimed at and I don't think there have really been any convincing arguments for why they shouldn't reduce their driving.

I agree that there are probably many people who need to take a look at themselves, those aren't necessairly osting on this thread or are on MNet either. What this thread does show is that people have many and complex reasons for driving places. The ability to change that isn't necessarily in their control. Some things require a complete step change in terms of the ability to use public transport, allocating schools by distance catchment etc. I live on the edge of a small city. The transport is abysmal unless you want to go to the Uni, also on the edge of the city. I can walk into the centre as its about 3 miles away. If I have heavy stuff to carry I need to take the car as to travel by bus takes 3 different buses and an hour and 40 minutes and also requires me to in the opposite direction from where I live at one point and sit for 20 minutes at the Uni which isn't near my house. DHs job is on the way to town so he walks, mine is out of town. DSs go to a school further away becasue of bullying issues.

I just don't get this thread.

No-one is saying that there aren't people who NEED to drive. No-one is suggesting that some four year old who can't walk should be forced to crawl 2 miles to school on all fours on bloodied knees. No-one is denying that some families have to live a distance from work or school, for a variety of reasons. Everyone is recognising and acknowledging that there are exceptional cases for car use.

However, the equation of that with the idea that every single person in a city needs to drive to work every day - the idea that none of those people are choosing to use a car when they could use public transport, a bike, or their own feet at least a couple of times a week - seems so obviously to fly in the face of common sense that it beggars belief. I mean, have you SEEN the traffic in rush hour in urban centres? Are people really suggesting that every single one of those people has no choice at all when it comes to their lifestyle or mode of transport? Because that would seem to be a very extreme, slightly perverse position that flies in the face of the evidence.

guilty thank you.

Otherwise I might go quite mad if anyone else writes 'my sons school is 20 miles away/I drop off on the way to work in another town/ DD has problems walking HTH'

This is not about any of the above scenarios FFS.

"No-one is saying that there aren't people who NEED to drive."

There is.

well guilty in the same post you've said that that no-one is saying that no-on needs to drive - and the same time saying that others are suggesting that everyone needs to drive and counldn't change.

Those are very extreme ends and most people sit in the middle. I think there is a group that is underestimating just how many people do actually need to drive in order to have a life that functions. and at the same time it's not unreasonable to suggest that sometimes people will use their car when they don't need to. To suggest that those people are the majority is not what this thread is showing.

Upshot is that there aren't many places to work where people would like to live, not many places people would like to live in near where there are jobs and there often isn't a good public transport infrastructure to link the places. Add in the silly system in E&W regarding school allocation that doesn't work for a whole group of people either.

I really hope that many of the posters on this thread are never required to sit an English Language exam with a reading comprehension component. If they already have GCSE/O Level English Language, they must surely have achieved little better than a U.

Read the bloody question, people! Or, in the words of teachers everywhere, "Answer the question on the paper, not the question you would have liked to have seen on the paper."

I drive my eldest, he has asd and could not walk alone and he is often rather reluctant to go into school so the walk has in the past increased his anxiety. After we drop him off I take the car home and walk with my youngest son, I work over lunchtime so this works perfectly x

Yes, yes lady, totally agree.

ArcheryAnnie, I do walk sometimes. When I drive to the school, I often have somewhere else to go as well.

As with many threads on here, the discussion has broadened from the original question, and whilst I appreciate that this may be annoying for some people, I am not sure it is realistic to expect people to stick ONLY to answering the exact question in the original post. No-one 'owns' a thread, once it has started.

Also, I am not sure it is reasonable to be rude or insulting towards people who are participating in the wider discussion, answering or debating points that others have raised - however annoying you find the digressions.

Normally I'd agree, SDTG, and of course discussions move on/divert etc and in those cases yes, it is irritating when people keep on harking back to the OP.

But in this thread it's so flippin' obvious that some people have to drive! Of course if you live ten miles from the school/have a disabled child/drive on to work it's reasonable to use the car. Who would think otherwise? It's far more interesting to discuss why people who have no need to drive at all can't be arsed to walk.

DS because he's 5 years old and its a 15 minute drive along some very busy roads. Also because he gets in early enough to play in the playground for half an hour with his friends before the whistle goes.

DD is 11 and just started senior school. We drive her to DS's school and as there are so many siblings attending the two different schools a bus is run between them in the morning so it makes sense for her to come as far as DS's school with us

Also, people just keep saying the same bloody thing over and over.

Yes, you are on your way to work, yes, you have a disability, yes, you live 10 miles from school. there are hundreds of repeat posts.

This was NOT the question and entirely irrelevant.

It's like saying 'what is you favourite meat recipe?' and hundreds of posters saying 'I'm vegetarian' 'my son has issues with meat' 'I don't like meat' etc. On and on.

See above
10 miles from school AGAIN

My DSD who's 5 lives about 200 m away from the school. Come rain or shine her Mum still drives her to school. I really don't understand it!!

It's not even like DSD doesn't like walking, she regularly walks 4/5 miles with us. Drives me up the wall that her Mum drives her to school.

This is a very long thread so no doubt this post will get lost. I'll try it anyway. Clearly the problem is extremely widespread and clearly it is a problem - pollution, dangerous congestion around schools etc.

But instead of trying to control the many, many people who do it why not try to think of a solution.

Clearly people drive their kids to school because it is in some way easier than walking.

How do we make it easier to get kids to school by another method and fit it into our lives - work, stuff to carry, whatever?

I don't know the answer but surely that is a more interesting discussion than 'everyone's a lazy bastard'?

Personally I walk my kids to school every day and I'm able to feel smug about it BUT I do it because it's EASIER than driving, finding somewhere to park, and so on.

Thank you Sarah you see THAT was an interesting post.
My personal latest bugbear is parents driving towards me on the pavement outside school, and I do have a problem with walking in that I had a 4 month stay in hospital 2 years ago and had to relearn walking.

I look o.k. but I am not. But yet, I get the fuck on with it.

Yes, plantsitter, I always walked back and forth because I couldn't face the school car park. It was bedlam. I suppose if I had been far less busy I would have driven on many occasions. Actually I most enjoyed walking when it was pouring with rain. Queues and queues of cars and we beat them all!

The school has tried walking buses but after initial bursts of enthusiasm interest waned.

Local secondary has dealt with problem to a large extent by having a no-park zone about a quarter of a mile round the school. And no cruising past to drop off/pick up either. (If there is pre-arranged reason, eg disability, one is allowed to drive onto school premises.)

Yes I'm often wondering about walking buses but you need parents to commit - and it is hard to commit in the mornings!

Do you think the exclusion zone thing works or just moves the problem elsewhere? What do people do now?

I think the school system in Scotland where the vast majority of children go to their local school does help and I know that people have said that the catchment system doesn't work in London and the other big cities (can't remember why as Glasgow and edinburgh etc seem to manage) but surely it would help for a lot of families. Obviously if we are talking rural communities it's of slightly less help too.

You can apply to a school out of catchment though and that's what my DSs do due to bullying issues at their local school. I wont apologise for doing that as DS still has issues rlated to the bullying and he's now 17.

However, i'll now get to the point :) The school Dss attend has a falling school role despite being one of the top schools in the country. In order to maintain their funding the number of pupils needs to be kept up. They encourage placing requests. That means that there are more and more pupils now travelling from areas outside the catchment. At the same time they have removed the facility for pupils not entitled to free transport on the one school bus that still is run and at the same time cut back public transport so that there is little option for anyone to use that. Inevitably that means that pupils are driven (including mine). We car pool as much as possible but I really can't see what the solution is as there are clear reasons for all these things happening.