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 😕

Tired mama, there are other ways other than walking and driving

Over such a short distance it would take no more time to cycle than it does to drive. A bakfiets (translates as "bucket bicycle) is an easy way to transport small children and bags. Much cheaper, too.

I live rurally the two roads we'd need to go to get to school are a twisty narrow country lane and then a 60 mile an hour road which leads to the motorway and has a lot of lorries going on and is extremely busy at that time in the morning. I'm not at all a confident cyclist, I tend to wobble when cars come near me and so haven't cycled on an actual road in about 10 years the thought of having my two young kids on roads like that and their safety being reliant on my ability to cycle absolutely terrifies me.

I'm also currently pregnant with quite a high risk pregnancy so especially at the moment it's not an option.

Also it's all mostly uphill on the way there and would probably take me significantly longer than a 10 minute round trip haha.

Another case where we need better infrastructure.

My ride to/from work involves a single track country lane (great), a two lane 50mph country road (known as "Schumacher Lane" locally, such is the perceived standard of driving), a very wide single carriageway trunk road (most vehicles leave plenty of room but still too many idiots) and some residential streets. I keep meaning to buy a camera because some of the idiots really need shopping.

I would like to see the UK having sheltered cycle paths throughout rural areas the way the Netherlands does - it doesn’t lead to anyone in the countryside giving up their car, but it does at least give older kids and teenagers some independence and reduces the burden on parents.

Tiredmama, you mention working from home/in an office, but what does your kids’ father do for a living?

The UK needs to get a grip on the OTT supervision of kids, even quite big ones. If kids are over 7 or so, it needs to be acceptable for them to hang out in a playground unsupervised. The UK is so weird on this kind of thing.

You need to contact the school and the police, and keep contacting the school if they don't do anything about it.

Ours has gotten that bad that the council have introduced a month of 'bad parking watch' so you're asked to take photos of repeat offenders and then they will go out to them or send a letter.

Some parents are just incredibly lazy. I live two streets away from the school so it takes longer to drive than walk, EVERY DAY a lady in the street closer to the school gets in her car, parks on the zig zags and takes her child to school, then drives back home. I honestly can't understand how lazy you can be.

YADNU
If someone parks in your driveway, park behind them, or call the police. Sadly, I don't think the police will do very much. Tge school definitely can't do anything. At best, they could send a reminder to parents.

He's an engineer and is either out the house from around 6am to late or works away completely in the week and only returns at the weekend depending on what site he's working on.

Working locally in the countryside around you?

I'm almost impressed by how you've managed to make the parent who walks each way sound lazy 🤣

They're very wrong as well. I'm a lone parent with a full time job. I would walk the 40 minutes to drop him at the breakfast club then another 40 minutes to work and repeat in the afternoon!

I also managed to have a lunch break so I'd just call that poor time management 😂

Do people who sit in traffic Jams also have cushy lives

No not much gets built round us, he builds like warehouses, sky scrapers sometimes works on runways. That's why he's out so early and back late it's either a long commute or he'll be hours and hours away hence the not home in the week, the company houses him if he's a certain distance away.

Many are dreadful. Poor kids having them as parents. We’ve tried contacting the school, but the parents override everyone.🙄

Is there somewhere safe for the parents to park and walk their children? Eg a local village hall.

Look at School Streets online where they close streets between certain hours to stop parents parking there, expect for residents an delivery drivers etc.

Bakfiets cost over two grand!! An electric one is four grand. That's basically car levels of money.

Only if you're comparing a new bakfiets with a secondhand car. You can pick up a secondhand bakfiets for £850, if you can find a secondhand car at that price you should be asking what's wrong with it. You won't find a new car for less than £13k. Then there's the running costs, bakfiets cost peanuts to run, a couple of hundred a year for maintenance plus bacon sandwiches to fuel it. The average car costs several thousand pounds a year to run.

OK, I’m just confused as to why you live so far out in the countryside if neither of you works there.

I think people generally accept that not everyone can drive, it seems less accepted that we can't all ride a bike.

OK, I’m just confused as to why you live so far out in the countryside if neither of you works there.

Why be confused, it's none of your bloody business where someone chooses to live or why! I don't live anywhere near my work either, why would I?

People could park 5 minutes away and walk though. And you might need to get to work, but a lot of parents don't.

I know that, because they arrive in my road between 2.15 and 2.30 and sit there with their engines running until the kids come out between 3.05 and 3.20 (there are two schools next to each other). Even if they are coming from work, they would easily have time to drive home and walk back in that sort of timeframe.

I love the pp who blocked in the CF who parked on her drive! Hopefully that concentrated his mind a bit and he didn't do it again.

Where I live we do have a sheltered cycle path.

The bloody dog walkers use it, even though there are ample other pavements and paths for them to use. Often with the dogs off lead, too.

And then when you cycle on the roads, White Van Man or Very Important and In A Rush SUV Driver tries to kill you.

I cycle to my local parkrun but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that I am going to be injured if I carry on. Either by a dog, or a driver. Or both working in concert.

Well, when people choose to live a long way from work and from school, it inevitably creates situations where more people will be forced to drive everywhere, including on school runs. That creates social costs.

Can’t wait till the UK has pay-per-mile road pricing and everyone is forced to think a little bit harder about where they live and how far out it’s sensible to live if you work in town.