Entitled parents (parking)

[SexyBoris]

My dentist has a small car park. Unfortunately it’s across a main road from a secondary school. I had an emergency appointment at 2:50pm (infected wisdom tooth) on Tuesday. Storm Barra was doing its worst …. The car park was full - vast majority of the cars had people sat in them with the engines running. I had to drive around and park near the local shops and walk around with the cold rain and wind battering my already agonising mouth.
Anyway, I got there just in time. They let me in and as I was sat waiting I saw the receptionist panicking running to the door saying “mrs Thompson is walking up, get her inside! She’s in her 90s!”. Elderly woman comes in struggling to breathe, said they couldn’t get parked and had had to walk from the shops. Receptionist said “that’s the bloody parents from XXX school using our car park!!”

WIBU to email the school and tell them that the parents selfish and inconsiderate parking is not on and they should do something about it??

Being 'drenched'? Oh for the love of... Kids aren't made of sugar, they won't dissolve. Some of the biggest laughs I ever had with the DC were when we got home having been soaked to the skin on the twenty minute walk home and we stripped off in the hallway & threw all our coats, clothes & shoes into the bath.

I'm all for walking/ cycling and no apologist for lazy parents who park dangerously. And you're right, children won't dissolve. However, children getting drenched on the way to school will then have to sit soaking wet in a freezing cold classroom with all of the windows open for ventilation. On the way home it's less of a problem.

Rain coats and umbrellas are good

My kids walk or cycle to school in all weather's as I do to work

@Inertia

Being 'drenched'? Oh for the love of... Kids aren't made of sugar, they won't dissolve. Some of the biggest laughs I ever had with the DC were when we got home having been soaked to the skin on the twenty minute walk home and we stripped off in the hallway & threw all our coats, clothes & shoes into the bath.

I'm all for walking/ cycling and no apologist for lazy parents who park dangerously. And you're right, children won't dissolve. However, children getting drenched on the way to school will then have to sit soaking wet in a freezing cold classroom with all of the windows open for ventilation. On the way home it's less of a problem.

Not if the parents give them proper wet weather clothing

My doctors surgery is next to a primary school, it used to be awful to get parked at school kicking out time but it has got better with repeated requests from the doctors.

I am not sure if the school did anything as my kids never went to that school.

Last year it was all over facebook about a lady who posted a rant on the town facebook page. She is a blue badge holder and was parked in the disabled place of the doctors surgery - but was actually waiting for her kid from school. A man (he was "old" as she put it) had a go at her for taking a blue badge space when she wasnt using the doctors surgery. Cue sad face but no matter how many times people told her that despite her blue badge she shouldnt be taking up a space in the doctors carpark when she wasnt using the surgery she refused to she that she was in the wrong.

She was adamant that she was right as she has a blue badge, never mind that blue badge holders using the doctors surgery couldnt get parked as she was hogging a space.

You can ask the school to email but I doubt anyone will give a hoot unless the dentist does something about it eg coming out and having a go, getting a barrier etc etc. My school sends notes about considerate parking all the time, has had the local paper out etc. Sometimes the parking wardens turn up but they can only do something about parking right outside the school on double yellows. It actually makes things worse for the residents when they are there as the residential close becomes so packed with the cars that usually just go on the yellows all the pavements, drives, cars are blocked and double parked to avoid the wardens.

@Inertia

Being 'drenched'? Oh for the love of... Kids aren't made of sugar, they won't dissolve. Some of the biggest laughs I ever had with the DC were when we got home having been soaked to the skin on the twenty minute walk home and we stripped off in the hallway & threw all our coats, clothes & shoes into the bath.

I'm all for walking/ cycling and no apologist for lazy parents who park dangerously. And you're right, children won't dissolve. However, children getting drenched on the way to school will then have to sit soaking wet in a freezing cold classroom with all of the windows open for ventilation. On the way home it's less of a problem.

Yup, and if it was raining before we left the house - or even looked like it might do - they were fully togged up in waterproofs & wellies to avoid that.

What would you have me do, when school is 25 minutes walk away, each way, and I don't drive? If you look at the post I was replying to, it was excusing entitled parent parking on the basis that DC might have to walk two or three streets to get to their nice warm car to take them home.

@squashyhat

I had my covid booster this afternoon. Booked ahead and specified a location with parking. I don't know the area and I'm not a parent so when I drive up at 3pm two schools within 100 yards are turning out. The car park was absolute bedlam. I ended up using a space requested to be kept free for doctors, for which no doubt I'll be shot down, but there was literally nowhere else. As it was I got in and out before my alloted appointment time - to find the car park miraculously 1/3 empty.

You got in and out before your allotted time so obviously you didn’t need that space. How rude. The same sort of person, who would park in a disabled space if there were no other spaces left without a thought for the disabled person, who literally couldn’t park further away when you could.

@BoredZelda

Kids aren't made of sugar, they won't dissolve.

Neither are adults who have to walk for a bit. Not sure why we think it’s fine for kids to walk home in a storm, that was given a red warning, when adults would avoid it if they could.

@BoredZelda, the post you're replying to was in response to a post suggesting it was too much for children to walk two or three streets to their parents' cars. Not walking all the way home in a storm.

My sons primary school is next to a dentist and we had an email the other week saying not to park in there so I think the dentist is well within their rights to ask the school to do the same! I'd never dream of parking in a dentist : doctors whatever car park to pick up my child!! (Luckily we can walk) but clearly some people think it's ok!!!

I have found this with disabled parking spaces. People just "resting" there so I cannot park, including vans. And at children's clubs when it comes to collection, people swan in with no badge to park there. Have to make myself calm down sometimes.

On the other hand, I can see why the school parents are parking there. People need to pick kids up from school and it adds time to the commute if the child has to walk 2 or 3 streets to get to the car. Nobody wants to add even 5 or 10 mins onto their commute. Not only that, given that there are many big cars, it could actually be very dangerous to walk those couple of streets, and the child could end up drenched, which is a pain. Really, it's a problem for the school to solve. They know the kids need picking up, they could look into solving the problem

It’s a secondary school. If kids can’t walk a couple of streets by themselves at that age, then there is no hope for them.

And if it’s raining, then they wear waterproofs, like the rest of us.