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.

As well as reporting to the council I'd be snapping a few pics and putting them up on @yplac on Twitter. But then I'm seriously childish.

I live next to a school and have a double drive. Can’t tell you how many times I have to go out and ask people to move their car as they re blocking my drive. I get responses like ‘ well are you using it as i’m only going to be here a few minutes’ or ‘ I’ve left a big enough space for you to get your car out’ or ‘ well why did you choose to live next to a school? You should have know there would be a problem’. In my nativity, as there are yellow zig zags all across my drive and beyond, I actually thought people wouldn’t park on them as they’re there to protect the children too. I’ve taken to taking pics now and I send them to the school, who are pretty good at sending out letters to parents.

The mummies around here block the only way in and out of our culdesac. They just sit in the entrance, not even to one side. Music blaring, dropping cigarette butts and coffee cups out of the window. God forbid that my neighbour gets a shout (he's a retained firefighter).

Our nursery is accessed via a footpath from a small public car park. It’s literally 100m to walk from the car park to the nursery gate.

We are told that it is acceptable to drive through the car park and park on the grass next to the footpath if the car park is full (there’s a gateway wide enough for vehicles to go through to allow for food deliveries to the nursery), but that we must keep cars at the bottom of the path.

Inevitably there are a handful of parents who think that this rule does not apply to them and every day drive straight up the footpath to park their cars outside the nursery gate, even if the car park is empty. The nursery have sent repeated emails asking them to stop as they are churning up the grass but the same few persist

And no, those parents do not have any children with disabilities, or any themselves, that preclude them walking 100m to the gate. There is one child with physical disabilities that mean she cannot walk, but her mum just pops her in a buggy in the car park and walks up with her.

@Oysterbabe

My DH has a real thing about illegal parking and will always mention it. This resulted in my 4 year old shouting 'you shouldn't park there!' though an open car window to a passenger waiting for the driver to come back from wherever they were.

Sounds very much like the time when a person doubleparked next to me while |i had my indicator on to get out of my parking space. I went 'huff' in annoyance and DS aged 4 piped up helpfully; 'he's just a fucking cunt, isn't he, mummy'.

I had words with DH when i got home.

Judging by the comments on a previous thread, it’s literally impossible for some parents to park five minutes away and walk, because if they did they’d be late for work, Jemima’s legs would fall off, and where they live it’s hailing all year round

I'd get some of those very very sticky ILLEGAL PARKING signs that you can find on the internet and be very liberal with them.

While there are some self centred whatevers in the world, in many cases I also feel very sorry for the parents who have to drive. We're lucky, we can walk. My mornings do not involve stress over trying to find a safe place to stop, or a fictional parking space. My dcs school has a tiny car park which is woefully inadequate. Parents are faced with the unenviable choice of queuing along the main road waiting to access it and blocking the traffic, or trying to find a space in the one residential street nearby (thus seriously pissing off the residents), or pulling up and parking half on the pavement (which avoids blocking the road, but then blocks the pedestrians). I am sure lots and lots of people complain to the school, but honestly what choice do the parents have? One of the parents is currently speaking with the council about the situation, as it is impossible for everyone. The dcs arriving by car live well outside walking distance and along A roads with no pathments. They are not spoilt or precious.

I hear you OP.

There is an alarming percentage of children at the school across the road from me who either melt in the rain, or whose legs are so faulty they can't walk the 300m from the carpark at the Co-Op.

Perfectly acceptable to park your car blocking in local residents when it's raining, or when transporting a defective-legged child to school and all you need to say when challenged is "i'll only be a minute".

It's perfectly fine. Extra fine if they play the delivery driver's card and have their hazards flashing but that's not compulsory.

The fruit of other's loins trumps the world these days.

At the school near me some parents drove across a garden to get to the school.

Try living between a primary school and a fee paying grammar school full of entitled pricks who think they have a god given right to not only park on double yellows but block everyone’s driveways and garages.

Thankfully the council are doing something about the primary school and parking wardens have been out in force when the grammar school finishes. It’s taken years of complaints from all the residents though.

You need to keep pestering your local council and the councillors, and escalate reports to the head of department and through the complaints system to the Local Government Ombudsman if they still do nothing. Ideally persuade other neighbours to do the same. Unfortunately you'll only get them to move if you become enough of a nuisance that they do their job in order to get rid of you.

Can you take photos/times for traffic warden. If it looks lucrative they may come out. We tried as a local residents group as we had a problem with lorry’s and cars parking on double yellows at top of road (next to several car parks) The photos of council wagons doing it seemed to help get a response. Someone has stuck stickers saying not McDonald’s car park next to a particularly popular stretch - sitting in your car on double yellows is fine as long as you eat a McDonald’s apparently.

I find swearing at them helps, also beeping my horn and the occasional clipped wing mirror! It's astonishing how entitled/ignorant/thick some people are - parked fully on the road (not half on the kerb), double yellows, on a bend right outside the school entrance - to the ample car park!!!! Un-fecking believable. I have to drive my son otherwise it's a 45min walk, no direct buses.

If your car is worth more than £30k you can park WHEREVER THE FUCK YOU WANT

We had the CT cunt who stopped on the raised crossing area to let his kid out. He was shouted at by another dad and said "I am dropping my kid off!" and the other dad said "Oh! The rest of us are here for fucking choir practice". It was so funny, and CT cunt parked down the road for a while and then, I assume, they moved as the kid wasnt in school after that. FWIW, I dont think they moved because of that, but I kind of hope they did :o

Bonus points for parking in a bus stop/across a crossing.

Someone parked opposite the end of our cul de sac yesterday, and two other cars parked right to the corner on the cul de sac side. We had a job to get out. We have a Kuga. Such a shame no one had a delivery in a large truck. The car opposite would have been at risk of damage. Worse though, an emergency vehicle would have had a job to get through, but that doesn't seem to occur to people.

It would be greatly reduced if such behaviour put you at the back of the queue for junior and secondary school places. People are prepared to go to great lengths to get a child into a good school, far more than walking a few yards.

YABU, you should absolutely not park on double yellows. You should drive over the double yellows to park with all four wheels on the pavement. Some of the other parents dropping off might disapprove at having 0.4cm of pavement left, but you just explain to them that you'll 'only be ten minutes' and ta-da! that makes it fine.

It’s not true that the police won’t do anything.

Our primary school contacted the police as it’s a safety issue . People were parking half on the pavement so mums with children and buggies had to walk in the road. Sometimes the local bus couldn’t get through and it became gridlocked.

The police started coming round about 10 mins before the bell rang. At first they would walk up and down, talking to the offending drivers. But after a while they got the message and the police just sat in their car down the road ( and presumably had a cup of coffee and a sandwich ).

It worked a treat.

And the zig zag lines are reserved for the exceptionally important parents who don’t have enough time to waste on their child’s safety.

Sounds like a revenue source for cash strapped LAs

@HaggieMaggie

Oh shit sorry OP, I am a tit, I have had two glasses of wine and voted wrong.

Shit school parkers are the pits, I live next door to a school and I hate the wankers that reverse down my (long) drive for their own personal parking space or those that sit and park at the top half on the pavement that restricts my view and so I cannot see the little ones when I try to get out.

nobs and entitled twats the lot of them,

I also live opposite a school and own a long drive - which is very obviously a domestic house drive!! But it doesn't stop people from coming up it and using my patio to turn around then off they go again, smug that they haven't caused an obstruction by having to turn around on the road like the rest of the peasants.

And telling the school makes fuck all difference, at least 12 times a year the school will put it on the newsletter "Don't park on the school zig zags or come up schools drive (knocking all the kids aside like fucking skittles) or use X business' parking bays" etc etc. Do they listen? Do they fuck! Same people every time too, it's be so easy to make an example of them but they don't.