Parents (mostly mums) taking the mick dropping kids off to school (PARKING)

[Anotherragingmorning]

Another morning another battle trying to find parking outside school. With mums mainly huddled around in playground or standing outside their cars talking while other parents struggling to find parking spots.

My DC primary school on a road with one end busy road, other end parking restrictions. Opposite school houses with driveways that now (over summer hols) have had double yellow lines installed due to parents blocking driveways. School has opened up their car park to help out but only a few spaces available about 10 and road has about 15 so In total about 25 parking spots. Causing a huge lack of space now. Takes about 2-3 minutes to walk kids in and drop off. Yet cars are parked up for 10-15 minutes at times. I know it's parents because as soon as the bell goes all the cars disappear.

Since school started I am having to drive up and down several times before finding a slot. Lucky if someone pulls out just as I come in otherwise a constant battle.
Yes this is a 1st world problem but one none the less I am having to live through almost every day. Since school started 2+ weeks ago my 2DC have been late 4 times. This morning being 4th time, and been told by office next time they are it will be marked as late.

AIBU to think this is pure inconsideration for other parents needing to drop their kids off too? Do parents really think this is their slot for however long they choose to have it?

I just realised I’m a numpty and Cider you were just giving the scenario if you did walk 🤦🏼‍♀️ I was thinking “crikey she’s keen” 🤣

Chilli i take it you don't need to be at work miles away for 9am then?

Because if I did decide to take the hour + walk to get dcs to school, I still wouldn't be able to get to work on time.

And it's ok saying it's not the schools problem you getting to work on time but the alternative would be to give up work and live off benefits. Then people would be moaning about that.. so you can't win! 🤷🏼‍♀️

our (primary) school created a drop off zone- you can help kids out of the car, but you cannot be more than 3 metres from the car.

It works surprisingly well, except for 1-2 parents who will sit in the zone for 30 mins before pick up in case their children's legs fall off walking 50 m to a parking space.

A drop off zone for 6 cars works and probably has 70 cars using it in the 10 mins before school.

@gunpowderGelatine

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I know diagrams are a bit passé in parking threads now but I'd like one showing surrounding roads, restrictions, pavements and route from house to school with scale if possible. Don't worry about the secondary school though if that helps.

Dd cycles ? 2 miles takes 15 mins

Surely people can do what they want once they've parked? If you go to town on a busy Saturday, and the car parks are filling up, do you speed through your shopping, or not pause to chat to a friend you've bumped into, or stop for a coffee, so you can rush back to move your car so someone else can park there?

But surely OhDearGod you must realise that this public street is designed purely for school drop off?! That is its very purpose and these mummies who need to talk to their mummy friends are to be scorned for having nothing better to do because OP is so much more important.

Honestly - there’s no point in trying to reason with the OP anymore - she is determined that anyone who inconveniences her is selfish while she is in dire straits with zero other options because her situation is so unique!

I, shockingly, sometimes walk along the road in the other direction to post a letter in the post box before returning to my car after school drop off on a morning.

This is a first world problem if it's purely out of convenience.
Not all parents are the same and people will need those spaces for reasons other than laziness. I have a spinal cord injury and find drop offs and pick ups hell on Earth because of this. If your reasons for needing a space so close to the school are genuine then fine.
Otherwise I'm guessing you have working legs?

I have never heard of a place where only 1 street has unrestricted parking and every other street within a 1 mile radius has permits or restrictions.

The whole of my town has restricted parking, except for 2 outlying areas. Only 2 out of 5 primaries are in areas where parking is not restricted. The (large) secondary and FE college are both in areas where parking is restricted. People in those areas mostly walk their kids to school.

I live in one of the free parking areas, about 0.25 of a mile from a school. The school run parents park so badly that the buses and bin lorries sometimes can't get through, and all the streets around where I live have been gridlocked as a result.

It boils my piss, frankly.

sonder
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Wow, you’ve taken a bashing OP. I totally agree that people who are parking up for 15-20 minutes are selfish assholes. If everyone just dropped off (5 mins) there probably wouldn’t be an issue?
MN is a parallel universe sometimes!

I think it’s totally fine to want to expect people to move if there are other parents wanting to drop off their kids and limited spaces - I always try and scoot if I see parents waiting. There could be all sorts of reasons they need to drive.

I like the system in america where parents have to drop and go

YABU I walk my DS to school every morning & we walk home every afternoon, we live half a mile away from school & walk in all weathers! I feel kind of smug sometimes cos can see how frustrated parents get with parking their cars. Can’t your younger kids go a breakfast club so can drop them off earlier?

I have 3 primary age kids in two different schools. The only way we are making it is if I drive. I drop the eldest off first 10 minutes early as he is in yr6 and able to hang out with his friends outside and then drive down to the nightmare parking zone that is the other school. I get there 10 minutes before the doors open. And yes, I will be in that parking space for around 15-20 minutes. DS2 has specific needs I need to see to before leaving the school.

I should have included the part where I cannot get there early due to other children.

This is a you problem. I'm not going to cut short the only decent Converstion I get a day to potentially accommodate someone who might need my space.

who felt it was their personal right to hang about using up space needed by other parents.

But it is their right...

Seriously is a first world problem! For someone who lives near a school and knows what a nightmare it is with parents dropping their kids off parking badly or just stop in the middle of the road...just park further away and walk

To those mentioning the US carpool system - yes, it is great (convenient, easy, quick) BUT - these schools are not set in the middle of towns with narrow roads and parking restrictions!

Most schools have large areas which are used for carpool so the cars have space to queue before it’s their turn for pick up. At my DC’s small school they could get the whole of lower school (about 300-350 pupils) out in 12min, but the cars were parked on the blacktop in rows prior to getting through the second gate - some cars started to arrive at 2.30pm when the outer gates opened - school didn’t finish until 3pm. It’s not a straightforward comparison because school grounds in the US are generally a lot larger and there does need to be some space for cars to wait.

When I was growing up in the 1950's and 60's we lived in a lovely safe neighborhood where we could roam freely without parents anywhere in sight. There was a horse pasture around the corner from my house with a lovely old fashioned stile where we could walk through the horses to get to the place where we picked blackberries. It was an idyllic safe childhood.

In the mid-60's they took out the horses and built a primary school in the pasture. Last night was was looking on google street view at the area and noticed around the school all the houses had NO PARKING on their fences/walls and there were even bollards in the grass verges. The neighborhood still looks the same with it's well maintained houses and lovely gardens and it is still far from busy roads.

Why do the parents in England feel the need to collect their children from school now and what is wrong with them walking? Our school was about a mile away and we all walked and had a blast.

Put one or the other into breakfast club then you won't be as rushed. Solved!

Parking can be a nightmare but I park a couple of streets away and just walk the rest. 😁

A residential street opposite a school will have all manner of people living there, overnight guests could be parked there, grocery delivery vans any number of different reasons for people to be parked legitimately on that street . You seem to have the misguide belief that because there is a school on the road the free parking is for parents to use and furthermore they should be off as soon as they dropped their DC . Absolute nonsense and I agree with those saying your attitude is far more selfish than any parent having a quick catch up with someone and not racing to their car and driving off.

I’m sorry but YABU. I have three children in three different schools. I drop one off at the bus stop to do the 8 miles to school on the bus, one off at breakfast club 2 miles in one direction and then the other one at his actual school 5 miles in the opposite direction, all by 8.15.
My husband leaves the house at 5.15 every morning so I have no help getting them ready. One of my boys has aspergers and another is physically disabled and needs help dressing and getting ready. I start the school run at 7.35. Sometimes you just have to pull up your big girl pants and get on with it. 😉