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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be really pee's off with poepl who drives what ti takes me 5 minutes to walk!

51 replies

LowFatMilkshake · 27/04/2007 22:24

Decided to open a whole new thread for this as it havck me off.

When I take DD to school I notice that on sunny days loads of people walk, but on rainy days people whol live just round the corner from me climb in ther cars (some of which are gas gauzzling 4x4's) and drives the LO's to school!

This does nothing for the environment and clogs up the paths with cars so I have trouble getting DS's pram up and down bumpy corbs ad passed obstacles like bin bags o rubbish day.

PEOPLE
If it's raining get your umbrella's out
If your late run
Just dont be so lazy!

OP posts:

twentypence · 28/04/2007 07:25

MrsJC - I am NOT walking to your house. Once ds starts school I may cycle.

Miaou · 28/04/2007 07:58

When I lived in Yorkshire, I discovered I was known as "the woman who walks everywhere", so unusual a phenomenon was I

Our next door neighbours clean the public toilets in our village. They are in their fifties/sixties I guess, but in good health. It's about 200 yards away (down a hill, I grant you). They take the car. It's also about 200 yards to the shop and they drive there as well. Even my ds when he was 16 months would walk there and back!

Miaou · 28/04/2007 08:00

Oops pressed post too soon - I sometimes look after a friend's little boys after school. If it's raining when I collect them they always moan, "why didn't you come in the car?". Because our street is so narrow we have to keep our car quite a way away from the house - just opposite the school, actually . Even when I point out where the car is, the school is, and where our house is, they still complain!!

misdee · 28/04/2007 08:20

i live a very short walk from the school. on days i have to go elsewhere after the school run i will take the car as i have to pass the school to get tio the shops generally. I only have 30nins after dropping the girls off untill the carer goes. but i'd say 4 out of 5 days we walk (unless dh is in hospital then i take the car and drive straight there).

i get asked the other day by lady up the road 'why arent you using your car?'

'its a short walk' says i.

'oh if i could drive i would drive everywhere'

'oh' walking off think she is very lazy.

hotbot · 28/04/2007 08:44

we only use our car for work,dh has new job so will poss be taking the bus and i walk to work anyway, and a really big food shop, once a month, got rid of our 2nd car 2 years ago. Theres nothing nicer that taking our baby out for a lovely walk in her pram and pointing out all the intersting things to see. You miss a lot in the car,also a lot less social engagement. We talk more on a walk than we ever would in the car

Lovecat · 30/04/2007 11:28

The woman who used to live next door to me was exclaiming over her dead car one morning, getting really stressed, worried etc - I offered to help, couldn't jump start it, so asked her if she needed a lift anywhere local, thinking it must be really urgent if she was getting herself in such a state.

Oh yes, that's great, she says, and hollers to her 9 yr old daughter who comes out in her school uniform - you know where xxxxx school is, yes?

Yes, I do. It's opposite my church. Literally a 5 minute walk away (I know, because I know exactly how late I can leave it before getting out the house to go to mass!). So I drove her, because I'd already made the offer, but boy, was I fuming! If she'd spent less time panicking over her car and walked, she could have been there 10 minutes earlier!

AND the place was chokka with cars double-parked and parents unloading their kids, so it took me a good 10 mins to get near enough to let her out! THEN she wanted me to wait to give her a lift back!!!

Mind you, I'm in no position to complain, my OH has the car surgically welded to his arse, he drives to the corner chippy (you can see it from our house, it takes less than a minute to walk there, before we had dd I used to wind him up by leaving the house just after he'd got in the car and getting to the chippy before him!)

Rachmumoftwo · 30/04/2007 11:38

Why don't these lazy people think about the planet our children are going to inherit (or not inherit if people like that don't wake up soon). I drive a car, but not if I can walk. I do drive my 2 to school, but we live in a rural area with no pavements and it would take over an hour to walk there on their little legs. DD1 can't wait to cycle now she has learned how without stabilisers! I have neighbours who will drive to the local shops, but it is a 10 minute drive as the through road is shut, and you can walk it in less than 5!

UnquietDad · 30/04/2007 11:41

Loads of people do the school run by car near us, and nobody can live more than 10 minutes away. Looking at some of the lardy arses on display, I reckon it would do them good to walk a bit.

glassslipper · 30/04/2007 12:55

i read this thread before i picked up dd1 from preschool. i walked with dd2 in the buggy. dd2 whined all the way home (15 mins) as she was so tired. i can understand why people drive tbh.

OrmIrian · 30/04/2007 13:00

I always notice how much heavier the traffic gets on wet days. Need to leave home 5 mins earlier. We do drive to school, and yes it's less than 5 mins walk, but in my defence we only do it when I'm going on to take DS#2 to nursery and I'm going to work afterwards. When I'm working from home I always walk. Driving is too stressful to do it when I don't have to.

3andnomore · 30/04/2007 13:12

Not unreasonable at all...pees me off, too....and yes, the people taht seem to shy away from a bit of rain and will drive a few hundret meters..pathetic!
This is part of the reason why Britain is the fattest nation in europe...sad....

ledodgy · 30/04/2007 13:23

Oh this pisses me off too walk ffs and use an umberella or a hood!

glassslipper · 30/04/2007 13:50

would also point out that i am not fat or lazy. but i do have a 4 month old who is waking 3 x a night so i sometimes choose to drive to collect dd1 from preschool then it makes for an easier life for all of us.

GreebosWhiskers · 30/04/2007 13:56

When dd1 & dd2 were at primary school the council couldn't find a crossing guard for a really busy road which was also a bus route. Right across from the school gates someone had parked a caravan (even tho' their drive was empty) & it got left there for months. With that & all the cars at dropping off/picking up time you could hardly see to cross the road but the police wouldn't move the caravan 'cos it wasn't obstructing TRAFFIC Loads of parents complained to the school who have always asked parents to encourage their kids to walk as it's in a housing estate in the middle of a town & most if not all pupils live within a few streets, but the cars still turned up day after day.

On a different (but similar note) we were in Glencoe on hols a few years ago & were sitting outside at a pub just outside the village when a car stopped & asked the waitress how to drive to Signal Rock (the rock where the beacon was lit to signal the start of the Glencoe Massacre). She looked a bit puzzled & told the driver that there wasn't a road but that it was about 100m behind the pub along a (very easy) track. The driver tutted, shook his head, sat his hugely fat arse back in the car & drove off with his equally fat family! ffs the day before me, dh & my 2 dds had walked about 17 miles in total exploring the lower slopes of the mountains. It took us all day & the kids were knackered but after a good meal at the pub on the way home they cantered back to the caravan pretending to be horses. And they were only about 8 & 9 at the time.

Gobbledigook · 30/04/2007 13:57

You are being judgemental without knowing the circumstances of the people involved.

I usually drive to school - it's not so far that I couldn't walk but because I then need to get to nursery in the next town I do need to drive. I could not walk to school, then all the way home (which would take ages with a 2.7 yr old and 4 yr old walking with me) and then get in the car to drive to the next town. Most of the time I've not got the whole morning to amble back from school - I've got to be going somewhere else for work, household errands or PTA stuff.

If I lived 2 mins walk away, obviously it would be different but it's about 20 mins on my own, about 35 mins with kids and it's just not possible to get everything else done in the morning if I saunter to school and back.

There could be tons of reasons for driving other than just being lazy.

GreebosWhiskers · 30/04/2007 14:02

I should add that neither me nor dh drive thro' choice & have both been treated as freaks 'cos of it. People at work would say 'why don't you just learn - think of all the places you could go'. To which I'd reply 'On Saturday we got the train to Pitlochry (or Dunkeld, North Berwick, Linlithgow etc), went hillwalking, had a meal in the pub then got the train back again - what did you do?' To which the answer was usually 'oh, nothing much - went to Tesco/ Dobbies/ B&Q . . .'
That was usually enough to shut them up for a while

hannahsaunt · 30/04/2007 14:17

I often do what seems like a ridiculously short drive e.g. to the supermarket but it's just the first of ten things I'm about to do on an enormous round trip taking the rest of the day...

Original poster

LowFatMilkshake · 30/04/2007 17:11

Goobldigook - you obviously have a longer journey and so have reason to drive your car. The people I am talking about are those who pass me in thier cars on the way to school, and then pass me again as I get back to front door. There is no reason why they need to drive other than lazy or morbid fear of rain!

Also shopping trips when you are going to buy a load a car is need for transportation.

No i am just having a pop at the lazy ones!

OP posts:

FioFio · 30/04/2007 17:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Gobbledigook · 30/04/2007 19:50

oh ok

LunarSea · 30/04/2007 20:54

It actually takes longer to get from our street to school by car than it does to walk. Doesn't stop some people from doing it though!

It's not just that people don't walk either - ds1 usually cycles to school, and most days there are only 2 or 3 other bikes in the rack - and this is a school with over 350 pupils.

Ripeberry · 30/04/2007 21:24

Its great to be able to walk during the day.
But i bet lots of people drive v.short distances at night because of yobs on the street.
AB

lizziemun · 30/04/2007 21:40

I gave up my car last september because it was costing a fortune to run and i was only using it 3 times a week to go shopping on monday, and to take dd to nursery twice a week probaly a total of about an hour's driving a week.

I now walk dd to nursery which just over a mile the last 200 yards up a near verticle climb, it takes me about 30mins.

I now do the shopping on a saturday or sunday when i am out and about doing other things.

It did help in losing weight, i lost about a stone between sept and december (put it on again as pg after trying for 2years. I now walk every where with dd (3.3). wherever i walk it is over a mile.

fruitful · 30/04/2007 21:43

When dd was doing mornings-only at school, I used to pick her up in the car, because it was a long enough walk that ds would go to sleep, sleep all the way home, sleep for 20 minutes more and wake up grumpy. And I wanted him to stay awake, have a decent lunch, and then have a good long nap. So we drove. It took the same amount of time I think, what with getting in and out of car seats and getting ds to walk from where we could park the car to the school. But he stayed awake so it was worth it.

Dd is doing full days now so we walk both ways and it is nice. But I was that mad woman, driving a 10-minute walk.

oliveoil · 30/04/2007 21:47

I walk on my knees flogging myself with a sturdy branch

it's the only way to feel superior I find

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