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

[10FrozenFingers]

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.

We have parents, male and female, pull onto the actual driveways in our road, they sit and wait then chuck their costa coffee cups out the window as they drive off with their darlings

Excellent idea! I wish they had it in my area. We all have to take our dc to school .... I park a few streets away and (shock horror) walk the remainder .... we don’t need to be driving to the school doors to drop off dc ... the majority have perfectly usable legs to walk them into school from a few streets away. Who knew we could do this.

in our area they close the school road from 8-9:30 and 14:00-16:00

How does that work for local residents? We are literally 2 houses away from school and I wouldn't appreciate not being able to leave for work because of selfish parents who can't park appropriately. Assuming there's some sort of pass/badge thing?

Very much in two minds about this. I hate selfish and inconsiderate drivers as much as the next person, but I also don't like the thought of pocket vigilantes doing the police's work for them and informing on their neighbours - we're already enough of a surveillance state as it is.

Unlike the police where I live who at a recent meeting to discuss parking problems said they 'aren't able to respond to reports of illegal parking'.

I can see this ending up in people getting assaulted though. Some of the parents who park outside my kids school can get pretty hostile if they're challenged.
I help out at school and have had to ask some to move as they're blocking access for the school mini bus, it never goes down well even if it's their child on the bus

It's worth a try, mo doubt there will be teething problems as with anything new but imo it's a good idea.

Ime of school runs bad parkers do tend to be the lazy, entitled, selfish thoughtless parents and quite frankly it serves them right if they are fined.

Some of the parents who park outside my kids school can get pretty hostile if they're challenged

And that's one of the reasons why this is a good idea, no one needs to challenge anyone.

You don’t have to take a paparazzi style camera with you. You can do it discreetly with a phone!

Stupid idea as it will just move the issue to areas slightly further away.

Our local school got parents not park on ZZ lines, then then park on the opposite side of the road, it has made no difference to safety of congestion.

We need to address why walking to school for many parents (who live nearby) as gone out of fashion.

I'd like to see local "Yellow buses" that ferry the majority of kids to school, can't do all but it would make a big difference with pollution and congestion..... a school boris bus !!!!

How does that work for local residents? We are literally 2 houses away from school and I wouldn't appreciate not being able to leave for work because of selfish parents who can't park appropriately. Assuming there's some sort of pass/badge thing?

residents received a old-tax-disk-type window sticker and are allowed to drive in/out.

@purpledanish
We have something similar and residents have a little pass on their car to allow them to drive in and out during restricted times.

Has anyone considered GDPR? Number plates are personal date under the Act. Any photos taken would have to be stored in case of a challenge to the ticket. Would the photographer want to be sued for misuse of date should no offence be proved. Could the photographer store the data securely.

@PineappleDanish not purpledanish!

I'd like to see local "Yellow buses" that ferry the majority of kids to school

There's no need for buses in the majority of urban areas. Our school catchment children are within 15 minutes' walk maximum. The few who are on placement requests are further away, but that was their parents' choice to send them to a school further away. ALL catchment children could realistically walk. Only around 25% do.

I'm completely all for reporting bad parking but surely if the school was already there when you moved to live near a school you have to expect it? Not saying it's right though.

@Travellor number plates are not personal data under GDPR (unless highly personalised!)

We drive around with number plates and everyone can see them all the time.

Cars get sold and number plates stay with the car.

They are not personal data!

There are double yellow lines outside my sons school, they were painted in the summer to ease the congestion on the road at school pick up and make it safer for the children. It has made no difference, every day the road is full of parked cars 30 mins before pickup. DS has a blue badge (applied for to help with school pick up) and it has no value as I don’t get a chance to park on double yellows unless I get there super early!

Travellor but a number plate is an identifiable marker for the vehicle , you accept that everyone can see that information when you get behind the wheel. The number plate of a vehicle is recorded many times a day on an average journey, I don't see how it being photographed on someone's phone is in breach of GDPR ? The police have access to the details regarding the owner of the vehicle , not the person taking the photograph ?

Nice "please park more considerately" messages have zero effect

Because the cretins who don't think they are the only ones (so they can get away with it) and it's "only for a minute" (so what ar eyou complaining about?)

But it's death by a thousand cuts.

I understand how parking illegally can really impact peoples' lives and cause a danger.

But there's something about getting neighbours/parents to dob eachother in that makes me extremely uncomfortable.

Reminds me of that ad campaign that urged people to grass on their neighbours if they suspected benefit fraud, and suddenly everyone was fucking Poirot.

Has anyone considered GDPR? Number plates are personal date under the Act. I am storing that along with all the other odd GDPR claims

As SciFi said, number plates are not personal data. Plug one into any search engine you like, you won't find any perosnal data attached... tax and MOT but not a name or address!

One issue with this is that still photos only present a snapshot in time. I live in Warwickshire and see the various patrols the police do at schools. One local force got criticism on Facebook the other day as the photos they posted apparently showed their own police vehicle parked on yellow zig-zags. They claimed they were actually driving at the time and the photo just happened to be taken while they were driving over the zig-zags.

From the ICO website

"What kind of information could allow an individual to be indirectly identified?

The following is a non-exhaustive list of information that could constitute personal data on the basis that it allows for an individual to be singled out from others:

car registration number and/or VIN;

@Travellor

Number plates are not personal data. Personal data is data which can be used to identify a living person and a car is not a person.

I’d absolutely support a scheme like this, in fact I’d like to see it rolled out to those who park like idiots in residential areas. Those who take up the equivalent of two spaces so they can be level with their front door, those who park partly or wholly over drives, those who park without permits, those who park in allocated spaces....ooh, the possibilities are endless

Things like this control the issue rather than resolving it. A resolution would the school implementing and an adequate pick up and drop off system.