To think is perfectly okay to park on double yellows if you’re picking a child up from nursery?

[OrigamiPenguinArmy]

It’s perfectly fine to park on double yellows if you’re picking up or dropping off at nursery right? Even though the road is really narrow and you’re forcing cars to drive up on the pavement by parking your Chelsea tractor there, and there’s a free car park a two minute walk away?

I know, click bait title, but I’m so sodding sick of it. The nursery is on the corner of my very narrow road and the main road, there’s a big free car park on the other side of the main road, but apparently that’s too far to walk. Sometimes my road is literally grid locked by a combination of parents on the double yellows and delivery vans, but they still do it. God forbid I might want to get my car out of my drive without doing a complicated manoeuvre.

I’ve tried complaining to the council, they say they’ll send someone round but they never do. I’ve tried complaining to the nursery, last time I did that they were apologising to while a member of staff was being picked up and getting into a car parked on the double yellows so they don’t give a fuck.

And yes, I know this is a rant but I’m fed up of it all today.

If it makes you feel better, they remain that entitled even when little Tabitha from pre-school has made it to the ripe old age of 16 and needs picking up from her GCSE lessons, despite almost being old enough to own their own car.

Yes I think it says in the Highway Code “illegal to park on double yellow lines, unless picking up your child from nursery school.”

At our primary school it's the 'throw the child out of the car on double yellows' that gets me. Half the time the parents are driving off and the the poor child hasn't even shut the door properly. I'm surprised there haven't been any accidents...yet.
Secondary is just as bad. Poor kids can't walk very far so mum and dad park on double yellows or even worse just park.in the middle of the road to let their precious child in to the car.
Don't get me started on teenagers that just walk into the road. At DD secondary school, I was astonished at the amount of kids that didn't know how how to cross a road. They just walked into the road without looking, it gave me the rage.

Hi,
Could you ring your local police non emergency number, try and speak to a local community officer and see if they can offer a police presence at pick up or drop off time once or twice (maybe with cones) to reset peoples habits. You could also phone or write to the nursery and ask them to remind parents that it is illegal to park on the lines, dangerous for children crossing and they should use the car park etc.

You'd love the road near me. Private girls school, and it gets absolutely gridlocked, because god forbid their precious 16yo princesses have to walk more than 5 metres to the school gates.The parents actually triple park - both sides of the road on double yellow lines, blocking in the cars that park fully on the pavement. It's quite entertaining to see. Not much fun when you have to step into the road to get your kids to school, because some arsehole has parked their 4x4 right up to the hedge.

It’s also perfectly legal to park in blue badge bays if you have a baby at nursery.

They are obviously there to save them a parking space!

Just point out they are neglecting their child's welfare, or suggest to them that they have an eyesight problem. Social services are too stretched otherwise I would consider it reasonable to allege child neglect by any example of bad driving with a child.

Report repeat offenders to the DVLA on the grounds they have not declared their eyesight issue.

Could you buy some cones off Amazon, get up REALLY early and set them out?

Take pictures with numberplates visible. Report to police.

Do they have their hazard lights on? Because you can park wherever you like once you do that.

At our primary school it's the 'throw the child out of the car on double yellows' that gets me. Half the time the parents are driving off and the the poor child hasn't even shut the door properly. I'm surprised there haven't been any accidents...yet.
Secondary is just as bad. Poor kids can't walk very far so mum and dad park on double yellows or even worse just park.in the middle of the road to let their precious child in to the car.

You are allowed to stop on double yellows to drop off or pick up people. You can't wait though, you must be in the act of unloading/loading the whole time you are are stopped.

Ah the infamous schrodinger's yellow lines. They simultaneously exist and don't exist - their reality is based on your interpretation of the situation....

It's absolutely ok. Preferably the tractors should be half on the zig zags and half on the pavement, but if not then double yellows will do. I swear we're slowly evolving into creatures without legs.

Oh, and don't forget to drive carefully round the lollipop lady. Ive seen that too 🙈

Its also perfectly ok to leave doors open and block the pavement while you chat with the other mums.
And to feed your child a snack while having all doors open.

At our primary, it is also perfectly okay to park your car on the school zig zag lines and in the school minibus bays, even if it means blocking the school minibuses coming back in to deliver the kids but only if you have a super expensive car.

Somehow owners of smaller cars don't seem to need to park so near.

You can't wait though, you must be in the act of unloading/loading the whole time you are are stopped

Yes, I'm pretty sure that escorting a child to the door of a nursery and then returning to the car covers that, so the car is almost certainly not illegally parked in that respect.

It may be that it's an obstruction if you really cannot get past in another car, but probably not. So the car is doing something entirely legal. Obviously the car owner is lazy and uncaring, but to deal with those people we need laws that actually provide protection, rather than moaning about it, get the council to put zig-zags maybe? Either way, they're not going to be shamed on mumsnet for it, they genuinely believe what they are doing is fine.

The school local to me has parents parking AROUND the roundabout, literally approach the roundabout, start to go around it and then PARK. Leaves me gobsmacked every freaking time I see it despite it being a daily occurrence, what irritates me is the school has a very small catchment so in theory most kids should live within a very short walking distance (very hard to get into), we moved mid year so I'm having to drive my kids 40 mile round trip to their school, to get stuck in traffic that theoretically should be very minimal, but nope, huge amount of drivers parking like knobs.

Something similar used to happen near DS's football club. The police/traffic wardens started coming and issuing fines. It was funny how quickly the car park was located after that!

(40 minute round trip that should say, it's not that far away )

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername

Do they have their hazard lights on? Because you can park wherever you like once you do that.

Very often they do.

Just to make things even worse on the opposite corner to the nursery is a small plumbing company who have vans which park up outside on the pavement. If you’re walking you end up in the road because the plumber vans are completely covering the pavement on that side and you can’t get between the Chelsea tractors to get on the pavement at the other side. The only reason no one has ever been knocked down is because you can’t drive faster than 5mph due to the road being so narrow.

It’s also apparently completely ok for amazon delivery drivers to block and entire pavement by parking on the pavement and straddling double yellow lines whilst delivering to flats on a different road, forcing pedestrians into a fast and narrow road to get past. Because if there is no park space they have to deliver anyhow no matter what.

We have a doggy day care close to us where the 'humans' will park on the double yellow lines right next to the bus stop to drop off their animals. There was roadworks there recently and the traffic light was literally opposite. They still parked there, just took up most of the path instead. There's an actual car park about 100m away

Winter2020 I don't know where you live, but our local Police force doesn't have enough PCSOs, or Police officers, to monitor parking outside schools and nurseries.