I live in a road with a school

[Truffle55]

Apologies in advance for the rant and slightly long message…

I live in a road with a primary school at the end. I’ve lived here for 25 years and I totally understand that parents need to get their kids to school - I too, need to do the same.

But…

Recently the behaviour of the parents dropping off and picking up their DC has been, frankly awful.

I have come home from picking my DC up from school to find someone parked on my drive! And now, someone thinks it’s “ok” to park across the T-junction into the road. This means I have to drive around them and into cars coming out of the road (from dropping off/picking up DC) to get onto my driveway (assuming no one is “borrowing” it).

I do understand people need to take their kids to school, I have to do it too! But really? Why are they so inconsiderate? When I pick my DC up from school I park away from the school… and we have an agreed process if I’m not there due to not being able to park SAFELY (I do get that DC is at secondary school and its easier to do this).

However, the parking by my house is getting out of control - the person who parks across the junction lets the children get into the car - roadside…. This is just dangerous!?

I’m at the point now that I just push through the cars because I feel “I live there, and I have right of way” - but that makes me uncomfortable.

And, let’s not talk about the addition is of an ice cream van!

Anyway, I’m considering contacting the school or even the police to see if they can do anything - sadly, I really feel, it is an accident waiting to happen 😕

Thank you so much to everyone who has replied - I am clearly not alone!!

To those wondering why I drive my DC to school - I pass the school on the way to work and also (on occasion) pick up a work colleague who lives near the school. So, it makes sense.

To add to my initial post (and after discussing), it is obvious that it has got a lot worse since Covid and the school has not only increased in size (one class per year to two, or maybe even three now) but it also decided to open up the back entrance to some year groups and this is at the end of my road.

It wasn’t at all like this when we bought the house 25 years ago - busy, obviously. But not the inconsiderate parking/driving that is seen now.

Clearly it was amazing when my DC came along as it was easy for me/us. But since then, it’s jut got worse and worse.

At the end of the day, we, as parents are all trying to do the same thing - get our kids to school safely. But there is no need to be inconsiderate to the people who live nearby.

Not to mention….

Think. Ambulance.

Think. Fire Engine.

There's probably someone bitching about you on the neighbourhood group next to the school you drive your DC to so it all evens out.

The difference is, I don’t park across driveways, on corners or obstruct dropped curbs. And I certainly do not park on other people’s driveways!

There is one poor person here who has to drive their mobility scooter down the middle of the road as there is no other choice.

This is not safe and is not right 🙁

in our area there's a way to send video recordings of illegal driving and parking to the police. And the registered keeper of the vehicle then gets a notice to prosecute posted to them. So just go out and film some of these ridiculous people and let the police get on with the nasty bit.

as for the jokers actually using your drive ("oh but I was only 5 minutes!!") I'd be parking my car across the drive and going for a long walk. Or going inside and taking a nice long hot bath!!

When the town schools are as shocking as ours, it happens. A lot! All the small village schools are
over subscribed. We’re in Devon, it’s a ‘thing’.

A huge issue is siblings getting into schools before the kids who live a stones throw away. This ridiculous criteria is causing loads of parents to not get their local walking distance school in my area, and therefore we are being forced to drive to the school miles away. This happens all the time round our way; dozens of cars driving to the school we could have walked to, but they got in first due to a sibling. We had to drive past our local school to take our kids to the next school over. Stupid. We would have loved to have walked to our local but it was literally filled with siblings none of whom lived nearby.

Doesn't excuse dickhead parking, but I'd be complaining to the councils about their stupid criteria.

Yes - sometimes 20 minutes! In the winter you can see the exhaust fumes belching out right into the faces of kids.
Some people just don't care about others anymore

Not necessarily.

I don't bitch about the parents who still drive their kids to the state schools next to me because they now all park properly. They have become self-policing. They are also acting like the private nursery and prep school parents so their drop offs and pick ups are done as quickly as possible. If they don't they risk getting a parking ticket and if they fight/abuse anyone they know their child's place can be removed.

I feel your pain as my parents live right next to a very good primary school so they have the same issues although they don’t work so nothing is spoiling for them. I feel YABU slightly as you drive to pick up your older kids so you are not to different in that sense.

Our area is the opposite, one decent school in the city is ridiculously oversubscribed, there are 2 small ones without catchment also oversubscribed then a massive chain school in the other direction which is now oversubscribed thanks to influx of new builds so a third of our primary will now be driving daily out of the city to a village school as that's where we've been placed rather than any of the 4 that could be cycled to (or the other 3 that are slightly closer). Bonkers system and adds to the traffic!

Major roadworks start right outside the school opposite me next Monday so the parents will have to park further away and walk

Doesnt make its ok to obstruct driveways or park on on them either though does it. This attitude stinks...

Yes, how remiss of my parents not to realise that 37 years into the future the school would have tripled in size, everyone would have started driving instead of walking, and they would have disabled children living with them who require wheelchair access to do the school run.

Honestly, imagine buying a house based on being affordable, in a lovely area, close to family and suiting their needs. Why oh why didn’t they use their crystal ball??

I’ve been talking to DD about it and she reminded me of a parent at her primary.
They lived about 3/4 minutes walk away (we walked past them) but the dad would drive his DD to school, but he had to drive to the opposite side to their entrance and then walk her over - which was further than the distance if they walked from home.

YANBU… but you are never going to change this. This is every primary school everywhere. People park selfishly and idiotically to save themselves a couple of minutes walk. I used to be a childminder and often had to walk my double buggy with toddlers in tow down the road as people had blocked the footpaths with their cars. Now I work in a school and we get constant complaints from residents that they were blocked in, from parents that their child was almost hit, that someone parked on the pelican crossing etc etc. there is nothing we can do. We can send out messages asking people to park considerately and be careful. If we’re lucky we can get a couple of PCSO’s to stand there for a few days but as soon as they are gone it’s back to stupid parking again.
if we challenge anyone we get verbally abused.
It really is awful but there are not enough PCSO’s to enforce parking at every school and you are never going to be able to change it

England’s school system is mad, ugh!

I think it’s probably just as well in some ways that the child population is declining in most parts of the UK - can you imagine what it would be like if the number of children needing school places was going up rather than down? The traffic situation people are describing would get worse still, and people would fight like mad to stop any new schools being opened near them.

I think cameras everywhere is probably the only real way to deal with this kind of situation. It’s a shame as nobody likes feeling like they are in a surveillance society, but it’s clear that a lot of people simply won’t self-police…

I've lived by a school for 10 years and it has always been like this. The school have sent out numerous letters, community police officers come out now and again, parents driving/parking dangerously have been shamed on the parents FB page. A child has been knocked over and an adult knocked off their bike by cars. There is a supermarket at the end of the road that allows parents to park there for drop off and pick up, literally a 2 minute walk, they still don't do it and park on yellow lines/across people's drives/double park. You've nothing to lose writting but I wouldn't expect anything to change. I'm not sure there's anything else the school near me could do but it still continues.

Local authorities should be all over this! If they issue fines they earn money - which they desperately need.

Fines can be avoided by parking according to the Highway Code and common sense.

Local Authorities could set parking attendants school related targets.

Imagine the funds that would roll in.

Local authorities should be all over this! If they issue fines they earn money - which they desperately need

Totally agree with this! It's a win win situation- they'd get money in and people would be deterred to park there after the first fine or two. Job done. Plus, they'd only have to send out parking attendants in the morning and at 3pm during term times so its not like it would waste money in sending people out to monitor it constantly.

My son's school introduced a before and afterschool play session (not as formal as a breakfast or afterschool club) for an extra 45 minutes in the morning and an hour after school. It was just supervised play in the hall, but it made such an enormous difference because you didn't have lots of parents dropping off and collecting at the same time.

I third this. It's a guaranteed income stream that renews itself over and over again.

Plus it might stop a child actually being run over, seeing as the parents behaving like this don't care about this so long as it's not theirs.

Our school used to tell you when the parking wardens were coming, how stupid is that!
100% fine then over and over. I think a lot of schools should have red double lines outside too.

The council are limited to what they can enforce, they can only hand out tickets for parking on the yellow markings. It would have to be the police to deal with a lot of the parking / driving issues/ offenses that take place on the school run.

They can give tickets for obstructing the pavement (by parking on it).