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.

Its because most parents go straight on to work after drop off. There are far less SAHP than there were 30 years ago.

but those who work often need to leave home way earlier than than school run time.
and even if it's close time wise, a 500-1000 meter school run (at least in larger towns) is perfect walking distance.

@Travellor there might be some rare instances where a number plate or VIN number are considered personal data but that will be the exception rather than the rule. The Queen's number plate will be personal data. Yours/mine/most people not so much.

But what is personal data is different for everyone. My name plus the city I live in would equal personal data for me (there's only one person with my name living in the UK so that would be enough to track me down) but Joe Smith + LONDON is NOT personal data because there will be hundreds of Joe Smiths living in London.

Sending a photo of a number plate to the police isn't anything near a breach of GDPR.

It "may" be a breach if, instead, you plastered it over Facebook, but even then, probably not if it was photographed in a public area and no other personal information was given.

When we all have online access to the MOT, insurance and road tax status of a vehicle, just by putting the number plate into an online webpage, the sending of a reg number to police is in no way a breach of GDPR.

There can't be a breach of GDPR if the same details are in the public domain.

Where my children go to school we now have two PCSOs who presumable have additional covered powers since they are there issuing fixed penalty parking tickets

It’s gone down well 😂

@picklesdragonisawelshdragon I agree entirely with your point at the start of the post.
There sadly is so little community peer pressure and concern for others these days that I don’t give a shit, as long as I’m ok - in this car I will park wherever I want - rot has set in.

And so many people turn into wankers behind the wheel of a car

*additionally conferred powers

but those who work often need to leave home way earlier than than school run time.

Quite. The 60 or so children who attend the breakfast club locally are dropped off any time after 7.30, and they are walked down the hill to school every morning. 10 minute walk, whether it's pouring rain, blowing a force 10 gale or snowing. A lot of the children being driven have stay at home parents, or parents who aren't working the standard 9-5.

Personally I don't claim any legal knowledge, but presumably the police will have taken advice over what sounds a brilliant idea?

It's been in operation for a while and proving very popular with most people. I think it must be legal, which is excellent. We still get PCSOs patrolling and issuing tickets as well.

Can I just say for the most part Warwickshire is rural so 500 to 1k school runs are v rare. Even in towns/cities the schools are pretty much all oversubscribed as we are still in a bulge of population. The rate of building new homes is phenomenal and facilities are creaking heavily in particular primary schools.

In terms of schools we have had some crazy decisions recently regarding bus passes for secondary - imagine housing estate, catchment school is x or y, half the estate is refused a bus pass for either school on the basis that z school (none catchment) is closer measuring to the front gates of the schools - which were changed to make this possible.... talk about crazy local government. Eventually that got overturned.

I bet you don't live by a school.

You don’t even need to live by a school to know this is a good idea. Anyone who abides by the rules when dropping their child off at school or ever drives through roads by a school during their day will know how beneficial something like this is.

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

Suspect that would just push the problem two streets back.

Worst one I ever had was a woman who pulled up on zig zags and the rear door flew open with a kid of about 4 jumping right out into the carriageway. How I missed him I’ll never know. Fortunately I’d seemed to have some second sight and slowed enough that I managed to swerve around him.

Days before dash cam sadly but I sent a stinker of an email to the school. A friend with a child there showed me the letter they had all received about child safety and parking on the back of my complaint. I doubt it made a scrap of difference.

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

They oppose anything that improves the lives of the law-abiding, ignore them.

I wonder what it is about school run parents and their inability to park considerately though?

At our school, we're lucky enough that it's right next to a council car park and the school issue permits to all parents that give us free parking for 30 minutes at drop off / pick up, which is brilliant for doing the school run (don't flame me for driving, I live 3 miles from the school in a rural area).

So you'd think that meant that there wouldn't be an issue. It's a big car park, plenty of space. Yet every day there's dozens of parents who are apparently incapable of parking in the lines, meaning that some spaces are not usable because they're so far over the adjacent space isn't wide enough.

Then there are the parents who insist on all trying to park in the spaces closest to the entrance, queuing up alongside empty spaces and causing the car park to become gridlocked. If they parked the opposite end to the school the most they would have to walk is about 200 metres.

And when it's not gridlocked, you get parents driving round at stupid speeds, even though there are kids getting out of cars every where.

I tend to park at the opposite end to the entrance to avoid most of the crap but I've had a few near misses in terms of nearly being clipped by the speedy parents.

Why does this happen? What is it about the school run that turns perfectly sensible people into utter morons?

To be fair, it only takes about half a dozen people (probably half of them taxi drivers) parking on zig-zags, pavements and double yellows (and sometimes, god help me, reversing fast right past the school gates) to create a really dangerous situation. Most parents are considerate and park far enough away to ease congestion.

There are just a few who not only park & drive recklessly but will also kick off if challenged. I know the school staff are afraid of these people - I would be too!

Then there are the parents who insist on all trying to park in the spaces closest to the entrance, queuing up alongside empty spaces and causing the car park to become gridlocked.

Same at the gym I go to. Crazy people who just have to park as close as possible to the entrance, and then spend an hour or two exercising. They seem utterly thick as they could "exercise" for a few minutes by walking a few car lengths further away from the entrance where there are loads of empty spaces! One particularly thick woman used to park in the disabled bays which were right by the door, without any blue badge and then spend over an hour jogging on the treadmill. Can never understand the stupidity of some people - they just get it into their tiny brains that they have to park as close as possible!

I prefer parking further away and then walking. Often it's even quicker than spending time trying to find a space.

I've helped our local school identify lots of 'park and stride areas' so bigger spaces suitable for parking with a maximum of a 10 minute walk to the school from there (most about 4 or 5 minutes).

Nothing has happened with this though - would be good to see something formalised so that we can improve the area for everyone, especially residents nearby.

My eldest is nearly 50 but parking was a problem at his senior school. When the children were starting at 11 part of the home school agreement was that you had to agree to not park within 400 yards of the school. I know people say that just pushes the problem further back but if you think about it and draw a circle 400 yards round the school it means the problem is spread out, not everyone trying to park in a small area.

It worked, it was a popular school and teachers and prefects would do parking duty at times and if you parked incorrectly your child would be given a letter warning you that you were breaking the agreement (I never got one so not sure what they said.)

Wishing our local police force would get on board with something like this. Parking at our school is a nightmare and the softly softly please don't park here approach just doesn't work.

It would be effective for councils to install CCTV cameras overlooking these areas, so anyone breaching notices and road markings could have a fine sent in the post.
Like they have in supermarkets and service station car parks.
Money raised in fines could be given to the school it was raised from towards much needed equipment or books etc.

It would be effective for councils to install CCTV cameras overlooking these areas, so anyone breaching notices and road markings could have a fine sent in the post.

That would need a change in the law.

Laws can be changed.