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 😕

YANBU.

We live very close to a school too - and yes, before anyone pipes up, the school was there when we bought the house. We've been here 16 years and when we moved in, the roll of the school was about 250 pupils (my eldest started that year). Now it's about 400. Despite ample parking in a car park 5 minutes walk away, parents are increasingly abandoning cars all over the place, double parking, parking across drives, the lot. All in the quest to get as close as humanly possible to the school gate so their precious little pickles don't have to walk the length of themselves.

School have no power. They don't enforce parking and neither they should. All they can do is politely ask parents to be considerate. Every time an email/letter goes out, it gets better for a day, then back to normal. Police really have better things to do.

It's very selfish but I'm sure all the parents who park like dicks with zero consideration for anyone else will be along shortly with all manner of excuses about why they couldn't possibly walk to school from home, or park 5 minutes away and walk from there.

As a Head I would receive complaints almost daily from neighbours and from other parents as well as photos.

we even had to move our minibus to stop a parent parking and blocking our gates. we tried reminders, clear signage, a list of parent cars details but what worked was speaking to the council and the police and now they make money daily from those who park where they are not meant to.

As a parent I understand the logistical nightmare of getting everyone to where they need to be in the morning but as a Head this is a parent issue not a child issue and it drains the whole team.

Sadie happens often

I live on the road opposite a school but further up so no one really wants to park by my house

But at the top of my road and along main school road it's hell

People do park crazily

We do have name and shame in our weekly newsletter. Usually a pic of car badly parked but with number plate blanked out

Traffic warden do come but at the wrong time. They arrive before school starts so 8.25 so people see then and don't park near the school that day

They would be better coming at 840 /850 once people have been parked and then ticket them

As sadly telling them to move doesn't work

Ive eve driving recently due to ankle issues even tho obv can walk as so close but I park round the back so easier to park

But still get dicks there

I often see a cm van park across a drive

or on Kerbs on the end of a road making it dangerous /hard to get through

As others have said, you really need to contact the council as well as the school, and they can look at solutions.

If someone is blocking a T-Junction, I would photograph plates and send to the police as that's obviously illegal as well as being unsafe.

If they park on your drive, there are stickers you can get which are highly adhesive and can be stuck on windscreens etc in inconvenient places. There are some houses near me who occasionally get tourists parking in the (paved) front garden, and one of them has stickers which say "This car is parked on private property" or similar. You'd probably only have to do it once and word would get around!

If someone parked on my drive I'd be accidentally dropping nails in front of their tyres.

Our school is a nightmare for this, we've had at least 3 children hit by cars mounting pavements in the past year and still nothing is done. I've overheard absolute twats whine about how it takes ages to drive 5 minutes down the road and park directly outside the school gates, clearly too thick to understand that they are the entire problem.

Also just to point out that "contact the governors" doesn't apply in Scotland, where we don't have governors.

Absolutely contact the school.

A house close to us has put large stylish rocks all the way along the grass where people were parking. Is working a treat! They’ve also emailed the school before and apparently the school sent home letters. Keep on it, people just get worse and worse and everything gets more chaotic if nobody steps in (and everyone will get used to whatever solutions they find, our school has cut off areas and it was a pain at first but now we all adhere and it’s definitely safer)

I can't believe people park on people's driveways😱If someone did that to me I'd absolutely block them in and then ask them why they thought their parking on someone else's property was acceptable. Outrageous.

Usually @Mnk711 it’s a variation on “I’m only going to be 2 minutes” or “but it’s raining” or “I’m late”.

The complain about inconsiderate, entitled driving. That shouldn’t happen anywhere - but least if all around a place where children are trying to walk to school

We live near a primary school and this happens on our road every single day, it’s a narrow cul de sac so we get trapped in. Can’t get the pram down but the path, parents swear if you ask them to move. This was this weeks parking special, police and local council aren’t bothered despite there being a number of crashes on our street.

Had this for years. Primary school at one end and nursery at the other end. Parents would double park, park on the pavement, on or across drives
On the days I dropped or picked up my children (from secondary school) I could rarely park on my drive as it would be blocked. So I'd have to park a couple of roads away and move car later.
Contacted school many times. The head (according to NDN) did tell parents constantly to park safety and be respectful to residents but never worked.
So you have my sympathies and hopefully the school will be able to help you and involve the police. We should have done this.

This is the end of a the school rd round the corner, the driver though it’s was ok to park across the junction.

I certainly wouldn't be hiding the registration numbers on those cars. Expose the idiots.

I grew up in a house opposite a primary school. These things were happening 40y ago. Nothing has changed.

We had a wide, 2foot high garden wall, which my parents had no objection to parents or children sitting on, or children playing on it and jumping the gap for the path. But when they started throwing litter into our garden and actually picking our flowers, mum saw red. She would set the sprinkler up so that it just reached the wall, but only turn the tap if they behaved anti-socially.

Parents would park across our drive, and behave quite aggressively if mum had the temerity to want to leave to collect my younger siblings.

If mum had already left, they would even park right on our drive. My school had different term dates to the one opposite, so if I was around I would go out and let down a tyre or two.

YANBU. I park round the corner from DS school. Long road with no houses, about a minute walk to the gate, plenty of room yet people still park opposite the school, over driveways, around junctions. Nightmare trying to get shifted through there and I'd hate to live in the middle of it.

There are actually two schools next to each other. The council installed barriers outside of one school, to stop people parking on the path, but then not outside of the other, so there's still people squeeze in a section of path to use it as a personal parking space. Then they're reversing out when there's kids running around, given it's a path. Will never understand how selfish some people can be.

www.glasgow.gov.uk/26208#:~:text=The%20new%20car%20free%20zones,each%20weekday%2C%20during%20term%20time.

We have this in my local area. If link doesn't work -

The new car free zones have been introduced on a temporary basis to allow them to be implemented quickly. The zones are designed to prohibit cars and other vehicles from driving up to school gates between 8.30am and 9.15am and then 2.30pm and 3.15pm each weekday, during term time.

I believe street get a permit and are able to drive during those times.

Might be worthwhile trying to pursue via your local council

I don’t live in a street with a school, but I have to drive down one everyday near drop off/ pick up time to get to where I need to be. I don’t know how you stand it. I used to use this school and would park streets away and walk to avoid snarling up the street.
The sheer ignorance of people is amazing - they somehow think because they have a child in that school, no road rules apply. Parking on zig zags, not looking when pulling out, assuming all rights of way, parking on yellows and blocking sight lines…..the list goes on because they have a child, don’t you know.

We are in a neighbouring council area to you @chailatte8 and they are consulting on doing similar. Can’t come soon enough.

YANBU

Live almost opposite a primary school and the parents entitlement is unbelievable. Even when they have parked across my drive and they are stopping me from leaving no urgency or apologies. I do email the school every so often and I'm sure it then goes in the weekly email or whatever but I get it's not within their control.

But then the best thing happened on Friday, mobile parking attendant was giving out tickets including someone parking across my drive. Made my week.

I e been fortunate, I’ve had only a couple of people park across my drive. I don’t ask them to move, but I do take there photo and they’ve asked me what I’m doing? I let them know I’m going to post it on local Facebook to show them blocking my drive. Incredible they e both moved 🤷‍♀️

ive erased the driver, they moved and blocked someone else’s drive on that day. I have noticed they park round the corner now

I live just along from our first school too OP. Fortunately DS attends this first school and since it's only a small(ish) school, he tends to recognise the kids or knows them by name. I had a parent block my drive once and DS shouted over the car "Hi Milo, why are you parked on my driveway?" Which had me giggling and the mam was mortified.
I did also once, when I had our car on the driveway and my work rental car blocking my drive way, have a parent "jokingly" complain that some selfish bugger had stolen her parking space. She clearly didn't know it was my house and my cars she kept blocking in. Hilarious when I told her

Where are people getting these stickers that are hard to remove to put on cars, and is it illegal?