To complain to school about parking? Diagram included

[yellowallpaper]

We have a primary school on our estate (nice school, kids used to attend).

It's the usual chaos of parking around 3 o'clock when I am heading out to collect mine. Parents generally don't park on the yellow lines but every inch of road is packed with cars.

Outside the school is an area of grass. So yesterday I saw a woman drive over the yellow zigzags over the curb, onto the pavement on park up on this grass. Not see this before and I can see that if it becomes a regular thing by December the grass will be a torn up muddy eyesore on my road. I also think it's illegal to drive over a pavement if there is no dropped curb?

WIBU to report this to the headteacher, or am I being a bit of a nimby?

Oh I would definitely mention it, you don't even need to say how it was, just get the school to send out a group message or put a sign up asking parents not to park on the grass

*who it was

Love the diagram.

I’d inform the school and politely suggest that if this continued or mire people started doing it the grassed area would look awful and see what they say. They probably don’t even know. They could at least mention it in the newsletter or whatever they use to communicate with parents.

We had someone like that outside our school. Used to get her SUV and just drive it willy nilly onto the grass verge which the children could walk on as overflow pavement space. It was clearly not a parking space and was really very dangerous. It used to, and still does get my goat.

YANBU to complain. If people see this happening and the school don't get them to stop, you can be sure by half term others will think it's acceptable and be doing the same. You might have to complain a couple of times though but don't give up.

Take a photo next time. Talk to your local councillor. By all means tell the school but all they can do is send out another letter to parents, the ones who are sensible will be observant, the ones who aren’t won’t take any notice. The police might come if you’re lucky, to give some warnings.
It’s woeful.

I would definitely inform the school. Children's safety is at risk if cars are suddenly driving onto and over a pavement right outside the school. If the school own the grass they may want to fence it off.

Road markings generally apply to the pavement as well as the road.

I recently met the head of parking at my local council; he tells me that they have an email address and next time someone keeps flouting parking rules, I should email them with location, date and time. They can then arrange to have a warden visit at an appropriate time (e.g. same time next day) and check it out. May be worth looking into whether you can get an email address for the local parking team?

I would see if they do it for a second time before I complain.

WIBU to report this to the headteacher, or am I being a bit of a nimby?

Do you think he doubles up as a traffic warden? exactly what do you expect him to do about it?

Do what we do locally, phone the council and they send out the parking wardens in hot pursuit of easy money, to police the road for two or three days 15 minutes each side of school chuck out.

It really isnt difficult to get the solution with a bit of google.

I would definately ask the school to put out a notice to the parents about this. Especially if it could cause an accident involving a child. The parking outside my children's school was an absolute nightmare and the school used to ask for the police to come out and enforce the parking laws (people would park on the zigzags.) A number were given fines, unfortunately it didn't stop people parking there because other idiots just took their place.

"Do you think he doubles up as a traffic warden? exactly what do you expect him to do about it?"

For goodness sake this is needlessly aggressive. Who are you, to speak like this to the OP?

"Do what we do locally, phone the council and they send out the parking wardens in hot pursuit of easy money"

How do you know their local council will act exactly the same? Oh wait - the usual confirmation bias of certain posters on here who believe the universe is exactly as they experience it to be.

It really isnt difficult to get the solution with a bit of google.

There is a difference between trawling the Internet for static historical information, and posting your question to a live forum of people for real time responses. So nope, I disagree with this also.

Also @WhatsMyPassword if everyone phones the council, some poor person will be inundated with calls...when one call from a headmaster could have done the trick and got them out.

Do you think he doubles up as a traffic warden? exactly what do you expect him to do about it?

Schools in our area are always sending out requests about parking near the school, makes sense to me since all the parking is school related

@WhatsMyPassword stupid response. Headteacher would send out a letter/notice to parents of course. Normal part of their job as they are responsible for the school and the safety of the children getting to and from it.

whatsmypassword. It's part of the school grounds. Everything after the pavement is school property. This may call for another diagram

I'll observe spy/stake out today, and complain if it happens again. The driver clearly didn't want to walk like other parents, but be closest to the gate when the kids were let out.

I'll refrain from having a quiet word

We had the exact same situation in our village.

I did not buy a sign from EBay that said strictly no parking on the grass and cable tie it to the fence when it was dark. They were about £2.99 in you decide not to do it either.

Community support police or whatever they are called will usually come and take a look at pick up time too

@yellowallpaper

"The driver clearly didn't want to walk like other parents, but be closest to the gate when the kids were let out."

What is it with people...I posted a few months ago about how I was at a park with my daughter, and someone actually had the audacity to park across the gates and entrance, meaning I had to walk into the road and around their car to access the park. This is so they could watch their DCs from the car without stepping out.

Some people are just so ridiculous. This is the example they set for their DCs. To not walk. To not set off earlier and plan your day accordingly knowing there is a likelihood of traffic. To not respect other road users and the environment. Just ghastly.

School unfortunately have no authority outside of their grounds. They can ask and advise people on their parking but can not physically stop people parking like knob heads. Your best bet is the council traffic dept. Phone them everyday (it will take several calls before they will come.out) just harass the shit out of them and they will (eventually)send traffic wardens out.
Our local schools have phones the police in the past and requested a pcso to be present (not always an option but our local pcso pops by randomly and it does deter some of the stupid parking)

If you take a photo of the car in situ and email to the council they may well ticket it. Our council would.

Definitely write an email to the principal if it happens again AND contact parking enforcement in your area.

The school across the road from me sends a section out in their newsletters. They might even publish a description of the car. They want to a) keep students safe from people parking illegally or even just inconsiderately. People who cross pavements, park on driveways etc.

b) maintain a good relationship with the community.

Don’t make my mistake though. If I go out to ask people to not park across my dropped kerb, I get abused. People are always convinced they are not causing ‘harm’ and ‘it is just for a few minutes ‘. None of them believe their parking adds to congestion and danger to the students.

Hopefully though, it is a one off.

The primary school my DC go to had issues like this with parents ruining grass verges and even blocking residents into their homes. The headmaster sent group emails and put it in the newsletter but they didn’t pay any attention to it. The volume of complaints got really bad and the local councillor got involved, who in turn got the police to do a sweep of the area one afternoon. Funnily enough it never happened again.
I was surprised the police came out to deal with it to be honest because we live in a massive city and would have imagined them seeing this as none of their business.

I very much sympathise as we live near a school apart from cars parking over our drive and on the double yellow lines, we have the odd person in their SUV parking on the green that is nearby. Very annoying

I did not buy a sign from EBay that said strictly no parking on the grass and cable tie it to the fence when it was dark. They were about £2.99 in you decide not to do it either.
I absolutely love the fact that you did not do this. Brilliant

I agree with taking a photo and initially sending it to the school, if it persists then send it to the local council.