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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU in thinking Warwickshire Police have cracked the school parking issue?

95 replies

10FrozenFingers · 12/02/2020 08:09

Now you can take photos of illegal parking and upload it to them. Tickets follow if the parking is seen to be illegal.

"Please be considerate to road users and pedestrians around the school especially during dropping off and picking up times.

Police Officers and Police Community Support Officers are now issuing tickets for those causing unnecessary obstruction of the highway.

We are aware that the situation regarding parking is a bone of contention for all those affected, either picking up a student, leaving the immediate vicinity or local residents accessing or exiting their own homes. We are also aware that with the presence of marked Police vehicles and uniformed officers, the matters seems to resolve itself for the period of time we are there. Therefore, we can now introduce ‘Operation Snap’.
Operation Snap was set up to help reduce demand for frontline Policing. Members of the public can now, via a secure online form, submit digital footage showing potential traffic offences. It has many other uses, but can utilised for unsafe and illegal parking near to schools. Fines can then be directly issued from this.
The secure forms can be accessed on the following link:
www.warwickshire.police.uk/operationsnap

All students and staff deserve the opportunity to leave the school safely and get home uninjured."

Seems to be working.

OP posts:
JemimaPuddleCat · 12/02/2020 08:11

I live on the beside a school and have to leave and arrive by car to do another school run the other side of town. It's an absolute nightmare. I'd welcome this in our area.

cologne4711 · 12/02/2020 08:15

It sounds good.

I presume they have a means of checking a photo is genuine.

If Hampshire police introduce this I will go round taking photos of all the twotsits who park on pavements (I know it's not illegal to park on a pavement but it is illegal to drive on one, and to park in such a way that causes an obstruction).

SimonJT · 12/02/2020 08:17

This is a fantastic idea, hopefully it will work and encourage other forces to implement similar strategies.

EmmapausalBitch · 12/02/2020 08:17

I'm in Warwickshire, live by a school and am sick of parents using my allocated parking space. This is great news Grin

HavelockVetinari · 12/02/2020 08:18

Brilliant!

ColourMyDreams · 12/02/2020 08:19

I would have a special outside the schools ticketing the offender's every bloody day of the week!

GiveHerHellFromUs · 12/02/2020 08:21

It's all well and good until you get some knob who sees you taking a picture of their car and kicks off in front of schoolchildren.

ProfessorSlocombe · 12/02/2020 08:24

I presume they have a means of checking a photo is genuine.

We'll start with the date/time stamps provenance, and take it from there.

I suspect they are hoping no one challenges them ... (or that no one can afford to challenge them). If it came to a bunfight in court, it could prove ... interesting. Courts tend to frown on initiatives where the asymmetry of the relationship between the state and subject are leveraged to enforce compliance. It's a tad tyrannical.

oncemorewithfeeling99 · 12/02/2020 08:28

I see why they have done it what with the crazy cuts to policing but I don’t like it. Slippery slope to a gestapo state, everyone informing on everyone for dubious motives.

Original poster
10FrozenFingers · 12/02/2020 08:35

I see why they have done it what with the crazy cuts to policing but I don’t like it. Slippery slope to a gestapo state, everyone informing on everyone for dubious motives.

I bet you don't live by a school.

OP posts:
cdtaylornats · 12/02/2020 08:35

Civil liberties people will be along to explain why this is eevil as is faial recognition.

Well it isn't it is a very reasonable response.

PineappleDanish · 12/02/2020 08:36

I live very close to a school and would be sending 6 to 8 pictures a day. People just don't give a shit.

Hopefully even the threat of being called out for parking like a wanker might be enough to alter behaviour.

Nice "please park more considerately" messages have zero effect.

Icecreamdiva · 12/02/2020 08:36

It’s a long time since I did the school run but I still remember and resent one extended family who thought meant the yellow zig zag lines outside the school gates meant ‘ reserved for ‘Smith’ family parking’. I would have loved a chance to shop them.

Sirzy · 12/02/2020 08:36

Brilliant idea. Our school has zig zag lines and the resident from the local house currently have their caravan parked on it blocking the path Hmm

RB68 · 12/02/2020 08:41

Well it wld be good if they had the resources to provide the back office support, or didn't direct resource from burglaries, car jackings/thefts and DV - lets just say as a resident they talk a good talk but three times now when I have had to make a call they have let me and a close friend down very badly. They have failed to bring in for questioning someone who they have good clear evidence on (as gathered for them by another force), they have failed to follow up on information on inumerable occasions and only seem to take cases to CPS if they are an easy win and the evidence fell in their lap.

Even other police forces do not wish to associate with them with West Mercia detatching themselves from the "alliance" they had

daisychicken · 12/02/2020 08:44

Another brilliant idea, needs implementation everywhere

(sorry, messed up the vote by pressing yabu by mistake, I did press yanbu as well though!)

picklesdragonisawelshdragon · 12/02/2020 08:45

The more we can automate the response to low level antisocial behaviour, the more man hours are freed up for investigating 'proper' crime. We waste man hours on low level stuff, or worse- we ignore it and do nothing. This is a good solution.

TreeClimbingCat · 12/02/2020 08:46

I think it is genuis. Anyone who says this is a slippery slope clearly didn't take their child to my children's primary. We walked but it is a 3 form entry with a nursery so 650+ children in a school originally built in the Victorian era and all housing built around it. Lots of the houses do not have drives so residents park on the road and then add in the parents.

People park on corners and over driveway dropped kerbs. They have double yellow lined some of it now to prevent the dangerous on corner parking. People are parking up 45 minutes early to collect just to get parked within a 5 minute walk!

The school has had PCSOs out, made children mini parking officers, asked nicely but the idiots still park like idiots. It will be interesting to see how well this does.

Another school locally to me has a police officer on a bike who makes a deliberate point of turning up at school drop off and pick up to bollock any idiot parkers. Works well for them.

oncemorewithfeeling99 · 12/02/2020 08:48

10FrozenFingers I do actually, although I’m fortunate that we can walk our child school and get to work. I imagine it’s very frustrating if your often late because of other people’s parking.
The real solutions though are surely to do with why everyone is in such a rush in the morning, the draconian treatment of anyone who is late to school and therefore people feel compelled to drive their children rather than walk. If we had better flexible school and work hours this wouldn’t happen. Children would be healthier and have better chats with their parents.

School parking is a feminist issue Smile

frumpety · 12/02/2020 08:49

If someone is parked illegally they will get a ticket , if someone is parked like a knob and blocking someones drive they probably won't get a ticket as I don't believe it is illegal to do so ?

PineappleDanish · 12/02/2020 08:50

They have double yellow lined some of it now to prevent the dangerous on corner parking

But someone needs to be there to enforce the lines. Round here we have single lines, double lines. no lines - zero effect.

BlackeyedSusan · 12/02/2020 08:52

The possibility of having photos taken should be a deterrent. The twonk who three point turns in the entrance to a road on a blind bend stopped after I photographed them.

BlueJava · 12/02/2020 08:52

It sounds good... until you get people who are "professional spotters". From what I have seen they are often retired people, who have turned themselves into volunteer parking wardens. They go out at all times to walk round the area and then snap cars they believe are parked illegally. We have a few of them round here. I've never been caught as I don't believe I've ever parked illegally but I did have someone be really nasty as they thought I was parked illegally but I wasn't. I had to try and diffuse the situation when they started shouting at me and my children and they wouldn't let me open my car door.

woodencoffeetable · 12/02/2020 08:53

in our area they close the school road from 8-9:30 and 14:00-16:00
very effective.
people realise that actually they have working legs.
they have reasonable exceptions for disabled pupils and a walking bus from a nearby supermarket carpark.

Kazzyhoward · 12/02/2020 08:54

I see why they have done it what with the crazy cuts to policing

Even in Blair's years of plenty, the police couldn't be arsed to stand at school gates to ticket parking offences. Don't for one moment think they'd do it if any new Govt started throwing money at the police again. I remember the daily chaos around our village primary school in the noughties - maybe once a year, we'd get a police car but they'd just park up to act as a deterrent. People need to put the rose tinted spectacles away and face that reality of front line policing hasn't changed in decades - they're just not interested in what they see as minor offences.