They are shutting the road to the school

[CheckMate2]

My DC school has just announced that the road to the school will be shut at drop off and pick up times to make it safer for social distancing.

This is a huge problem for me as I have 3 to drop off at different schools, they are asking us to park far away and walk.

I think it's down to the residents complaining about the parking but to close it completely seems so ott for the working parents and the parents who have to drive.

What do you think?

t actually takes not very long to park further away and walk op. I have 4 children at 3 different schools. I'm only ever late if I try and park close by. 2 streets away and it takesLiterally 2 minutes to walk as it's good exercise.

at the school you'er thinking of in your head, sure. Doesn't mean this is true for OP, or anyone else.

Schemes like this do not take into account that people need to get to work and there often isn't time to add in a ten minute walk back to your car & get to work on time.

The only real answer is for schools to do what they did when I was a child, and allowed kids to be dropped a bit earlier, but these days they seem to only open gates for about 2 minutes.

There are not enough childminders or breakfast club spaces available to facilitate people paying someone else to drop off either, even disregarding that that is a cost most people can't and shouldn't have to pay so unnecessarily. Where I live the families who love these schemes all have an SAHP and they can't fathom how much of a problem it is for working parents.

You have to park and then walk??????? OMG, that sounds awful

vegan how about you engage with the real problems people are raising. Literally no-one has said they object to walking itself. The issue is time constraints or dangerous routes.

@MissMarplesGlove

the parents who have to drive

No-one HAS to drive a car. We have legs.

What about disabilities?

People shouldn't be able to drive near to or past schools - it makes it too dangerous for small children and families.

That might mean relocating schools. Ours is on the main road, we have to drive past it to go anywhere by car.

The issue is time constraints or dangerous routes
What about disabilities

Dangerous routes to school would not be where school streets are, school streets are in urban locations, urban locations where there is no safe walking route anywhere to the school do not exist.

Disabled access is universally allowed in school streets systems, they drive to the school like normal.

Time constraints - No, this is exactly the point, your needs to be somewhere at a particular time that you decide requires you to use a car does not trump everyone else's need to have a save and non-polluted environment. The exact solution to your problem will depend on the exact problem, but it's no different to other time constraints that so many people have that are not solved by cars.

@GrolliffetheDragon

People shouldn't be able to drive near to or past schools - it makes it too dangerous for small children and families.

That might mean relocating schools. Ours is on the main road, we have to drive past it to go anywhere by car.

Though saying that, they could ban parking near the school at pick up and drop off times. People park like idiots, and very dangerously at times, making it impossible to cross the road safely in some places.

Though I suppose it would just displace the parking, and people would park stupidly a bit further away.

It seems to work well here now it's settled down. There were a few complaints but those people have had to make alternate arrangements, the council makes no exceptions. Delivery vans have also adjusted. It is residents only twice a day and they only move around if they really have to.

Residents are very careful entering and leaving their drives and it's a lot safer all round with much better visibility.

I do feel sorry for those who will find it difficult but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

OK. What solution would you propose to my specific scenario where I can't drop my dd off before x time which is 10 mins before I have to be in front of my own class and no one is available to take her for me and there is no childcare option that is affordable. Shall I ask my school to redesign its timetable for me? Or let me off being a tutor? It's all very well saying 'tough' but that's not a solution. I 100% agree that car use is more than it should be but modern life has evolved assuming car use. To reverse that you have to redesign EVERYTHING, not just remove one bit and expect people to manage.

and there is no childcare option that is affordable

This is what I would be most surprised about, you need 20 minutes care at an age where there's little limits on the number of children who can be cared for. There are multiple childminders in the area near me who do it that quite cheaply, now "affordable" is obviously a difficult term, but I would be surprised if that's not the same elsewhere.

I'm also very surprised that anywhere a school street is considered, that the car actually is an option for what you want, there is nowhere in my area where a car can reliably make a journey that takes 10 minutes, rush hour traffic is simply too busy, and many days it would take considerably longer. Any such time sensitive travel would have to be by bike/scooter/etc. as you couldn't rely on the car getting you there anyway. So it's quite likely that you're actually putting up a deliberate strawman, as you're not in a busy enough location to require a school street.

I assume the other children are at secondary then? Why do they need dropping off? Send them on their own and you have enough time to walk DC3 to school.

Why are people so incapable of understanding that people's circumstances and areas and availabilities differ to their own? There's no point going through every particular nuance of my situation but it would be nice if I could be believed when I say that IF my school or council decided to ban parking in the streets around my dds school, I would not be able to get to work on time. And I don't believe this is an issue for 'the few'. I believe life has evolved over the last few decades, with kids going to schools that aren't round the corner, parents working further away or longer hours etc and many many scenarios stem from those factors that DO require a car and don't allow for an extra 5/10/20mins built in. Also not all secondary age kids can cope with independent travel. Most SEN kids now go to mainstream schools and many of them would not cope with public transport. My son just about can but only if everything goes 100% smoothly. Any out of the ordinary event and he'll panic and freeze. He has a phone, so guess what happens.. He calls and I or a grandparent have to drive to rescue him. Car use is endemic and that won't change unless an entire overhaul of 'life' occurs. Policy change that all kids go to the neaerest school regardless of parental preference. Affordable wraparound care at all schools from 7.15 til 6.30 minimum. Mandatory and free school buses for secondary on any route that a kid sent there lives within a sensible and safe walking distance of. THEN you might be able to say people shouldn't / can't use their cars for the school run. But picking at odd bits doesnt work.

huge
if a child has SEN and cannot travel independently, then the child should qualify for transport.

@MissMarplesGlove

the parents who have to drive

No-one HAS to drive a car. We have legs.

When I registered DS for school and DD for Nursery, Covid was unheard of, and the start/end times worked out nicely to give me time to drop off DS to Breakfast Club and still get to Nursery on time, and in the afternoon to pick up DD and then get to school for DS.

The Covid happened, and now Breakfast Club is cancelled, the start and end times have changed to give me a much smaller window, and there are no childminders with space available to collect either of them and hold onto them for half an hour (because understandably they don't want to look after a child for 30 minutes if it means turning down a child who'll be there all afternoon). DD can't ride a bike and DS can just about but would be dangerous on a road.

So really my only option is to drive. Next year they'll be at the same school, and hopefully start and end times will be back to normal, so we can go back to walking.

@Pumkinseed

huge if a child has SEN and cannot travel independently, then the child should qualify for transport.

Not always.

Currently I can walk Ds to his primary school most days (10 minute walk at his pace 5 for me at normal pace). He will be going to secondary school next year which is just over a mile away, due to his needs he won’t be able to walk there (and mummy waking you to secondary school isn’t ideal either!) but because it is so close there wouldn’t be any transport. Thankfully I am his full time carer and drive.

Yup of course. Every single parent who parks like an arse and inconveniences residents to the point that they have no option but to close the whole road has children with SEN. Course they do.

Or maybe, just maybe, there are a lot of self-absorbed fuckers out there?

I'm sorry if I sounded unsympathetic to the problems faced by some parents, I do understand it will be a problem for some. But our council says there's no point in making exceptions because "everybody can come up with a reason to drive to the school".

The school where this has been done tried everything but parents just ignored safety. The road outside the school is narrow and on a bend, any parking can be dangerous. Yellow and zig zag lines ignored. So this was their solution. It's likely to be rolled out to other schools soon.

So, in the case of this school - which has no parking all along the lane - parents were already breaking the law when they parked.

Can’t believe all the pp saying “what about rural” and “what about disabilities”? This is all about inconsiderate parents in towns and cities who put their own needs before their communities.

This is all about inconsiderate parents in towns and cities who put their own needs before their communities

All parents put the needs of their children before complete strangers. I think you'll find that's called parenting.
For example, my childrens need to go to school and my need to get to work on time are more important to me that some random person who chose to live near a school being bothered by too many cars. You're mad if you think there is literally anyone who wouldn't share the same priorities.

How old are the other children? Perhaps they can find their own way to school if they're secondary age, leaving you more time to take your youngest in?

My sons school is on a school street and its fantastic, it was only put in place last November. It has made a huge difference to both drop off and pick up. When parents could park there would sometimes be verbal fights because a parent had parked in another parents usual place. Or the parents who would dump their car in the middle of the road.

I live on a road with 2 schools on it. People don't social distance, they stand on the pavement and chat, and driving/parking is interchangeably careless/illegal/dangerous. Many is the time I've seen a car mount the pavement to pass parked cars (rather than wait about 2 seconds), park across someones' drive, or stop at the zebra crossing to let kids out.
It feels like just a matter of time before someone is seriously injured with regard to the traffic/parking, so anything that helps is good, even if that means that people do have to walk from a bit further.

Two examples of twattish parking I saw on today's pick up...

1. parking across a driveway (other parking available less than 10m away) and leaving the car unattended with engine running while going to the school
2. partially across the entrance to a block of flats (directly next to the school) but pulled up onto the pavement so as or to block the entrance, so that children had to walk into road around it.

Unfortunately the handful of parents like this make things dangerous for the rest of the residents/parents/children. The majority of the parents do act safely.

My sons schools started doing this and It was a nightmare. Especially as his school is between two dual carriageways and parking is practically non existent.

It’s not always a case of parking and walking down as obviously other parents are doing the same. So parking is still an issue, children end up getting in late as there is nowhere to park and some parents I know have to park and walk 15/20 mins down to the school (sometimes with younger siblings- and childminders/ nannies have the issue with having to collect other children also so means they are late or have to walk with all the children), and frustrations are very high.

I don’t think it’s been thought through properly at all.