To ask if you have ever solved parking on zig-zag lines issues at your school?

[JacquesHarlow]

I am genuinely trying to understand why there is so much disregard from drivers for our school markings (zig zag lines asking to "keep clear"). The disregard for the lines happens during drop-off and pick up on the school run, when the council have placed a sign above the lines explicitly stating that they should be kept clear at these times.

In the last month I have seen

• Someone swoop in over the markings while indicating left. Then sitting there with the engine running for 3 mins, still indicating left (why?!) while they hoped the space in front of the zig zags would be vacated. When it wasn't, they then offloaded their offspring on the zig zags

• A dad drop off his son in a sports car. Then sit bang slap in the middle of the zig zags while rolling a cigarette. When challenged by another mother, he said coldly .. "I'm rolling my cigarette"..completely oblivious of the outrage of those who had asked him to clear the markings so people could safely cross.

• A mother who regularly parks directly opposite the markings, mounted up on the kerb. It then funnels everyone's cars to drive into the zig zags in order to get round them. When challenged, usual haughtiness and arrogance. Couldn't see how this was causing any danger.

Last month we had a parking attendant out from the council .You can imagine what happened... all these people just melted away for a day, and then reappeared the next day.

So I have two real questions:

1. AIBU to even care about this? Are zig-zags a thing of the past? Surely people do care about the ability to cross safely without having to peer around cars that want VIP parking?
2. Have you had this problem before and how did your school solve it in the end?

Fully expect to be called U, but if so, can anyone explain then why I am unreasonable please?

Thanks in advance.

Bizarrely our school has set up a drop off point (signs and everything) actually on the zig zags...

Our local schools are on a road with some houses - there are roads at either end. The council has made it so you can't drive into the school road during certain hours in the morning and afternoon (unless you live there and have an exclusion) or you will be fined. They have cameras at each end. There are several of these in our borough - where they can physically do it they have done it.

We've had the school streets system for some years now. Solved it for us as time limit is well before the children's arrival. Took a while to get staff passes though.

The school near me puts 3ft statuette/signs of cartoon police men holding signs about parking safety at 6ft intervals along the zig zags during the school day, so you can’t actually park on the zig zags.

ETA: like this signs2schools.co.uk/product/school-safety/kiddie-road-signs/police-officer-kiddie-cut-out-pavement-sign/

You need to campaign for a school street. If parents aren’t able to drive and park safely then they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the school. The SS goes some way to stopping them.

All schools round here put out cones morning and afternoon to stop people parking on the zigzags and double yellows. They have a staff member out front of school also to keep an eye on it. Our lollipop man used to challenge them politely but he got so much abuse and threats that he stopped, he's an elderly man! I honestly find it baffling that people will park dangerously outside their children's school 😳

Ours just pull up next to the rails and the child gets out the other side of the car into the middle of the road, with no concern for safety!

Our school has stopped traffic driving on the street during the morning and afternoon. I love it.
If parents can’t be trusted to abide by the rules and park safely than banning them from driving near the school seems like the best option.

Schools need to have a drive through system where they drive round the school car park and kids hop out and everyone moves on. Do parents get out the car and take their kids in? Or are they just stopping for 30sec for kids to jump out?

Does that not just clog up the next street down? And what about residents?

Our school is a Victorian building with two car parks. One has 12 spaces and definitely no space to allow people to drive round so that children can 'hop out'. The other is a small area of land reclaimed from the school field, which again, has space for about 15 cars. The only way a drive through system would work here would be if we paid many thousands of £ to cover part of the field with tarmac to create a roadway. Or to allow parents' cars to churn up part of the field by driving across it. And of course, either of those would reduce the size of the field even further. We are definitely not the only school like this in our area, and a lot of schools locally have even smaller, or no car park at all.

My DCs school actually has a car park where that sort of system would be theoretically possible, but they’ve had to lock the car park at drop off / pick up times because there were too many parents driving dangerously in the school car park.

Our Head Teacher is out there every morning and afternoon, in a high viz jacket, telling them to move.
Anyone who doesn’t comply gets their registration put on the weekly newsletter.

The standard of driving and parking including on the zig zags by both my kids schools (on the same site) is generally pretty dire.
There’s a road on a bus route and also the school drive for kids to navigate. The teaching staff at the juniors don’t come out to try and manage it and I don’t blame them really.
There’s a huge amount of children that seem to have no road safety awareness so it’s even more important for drivers to be vigilant and keep the zig zags free.
I’m highly un popular with many of the zig zags users as I drop off the min the gates open, and have no qualms about standing in front of their bonnet ‘trying’ to cross the road as they zoom in and want to zoom off again.

Take a photo of the registration and report to 101 and also the school headmaster.

Obviously like any road restrictions you can still drive down if you live there. I live a couple of streets away and it doesn’t clog any further streets because there is permit parking and you can’t park on the surrounding residential streets.

This is the way to do it! I would also add a photo!

Sounds a good option. Did the LA or highways sort the cameras?

At the primary my DDs went to, the only thing that stopped it briefly was when local PCSOs would be onsite. But it’s one of the rare places where I’m not sure what parents are supposed to do. It’s a small Victorian school building (that has had a modern building added on the site to the rear of the original building). It’s in the middle of what would have been farmland all around, right down to the sea, when it was built. Located right next to the small Church it’s affiliated to. Would have been the school and Church for the tiny hamlets originally around it. Wedged between a single track road and another small road that is more modern but still narrow enough to not be able to park both sides. That road was probably built in the 1950s judging by the age of the ten houses built along it, and each house has a drive way so between those there is space for approximately ten cars to park on the road. The roads lead out to countryside in either direction, no paths, no parking opportunities further away. But because of all of the building in the local area this school now has to accommodate 500+ children. It’s walkable from one small housing area, or across fields from some other locations (not an option in winter). Genuinely don’t know what parents are supposed to do. The only reason I managed it was because for all of DDs time there I was either a SAHP or running my own business from home, and so could get there early enough to ensure I could get one of the few parking places. Quite a rare situation I imagine (I say that but there’s another village school not far in a similar location) but parents were still expected to navigate the situation.

Our school has the janny put big cones out all down the road every day and the cones with child shaped outlines on. It's time well spent as after a year I don't think they have to put the cones out now, might to start again for new term. A new batch of parents to be trained!

Our village school has two entrances (front and back). The front/main entrance got so congested virtually daily the entire road was blocked to "through" traffic with double/treble parking, parking on double yellows and zig-zags, etc. They "solved" that particular problem by locking the main gates at start/finish times so kids couldn't go in/come out that way!

Trouble is that it's doubled the traffic on the back gates so now that area is congested and blocked twice a day!

Parents are probably the worst kind of drivers around school start/finish times. Our village is 20mph throughout, but parents (especially those in huge SUVs) come through at stupidly high speeds if they're late to pick up or get delayed at drop off and are rushing to work (or to have their eyebrows done!).

I really think that our entire village needs to be blocked between 8-30 and 9-00 and again between 3-15 and 3-45 - have traffic wardens/police on the main in/out roads stopping ALL traffic and forcing parents to park elsewhere and walk. We have loads of more suitable off street parking on all roads in/out of the village just 5-10 minutes walk away.

I think it's the LA. We are in a small London borough - we are so used to cameras for ulez already.

I don't think I've ever encountered a primary school that has a car park that isn't solely for staff (and lots of the ones near me don't even have staff parking).

The other local school has done this and apparently the statistics show that it has reduced the number of kids being driven at all - once you can't drop right outside the school (well, you never 'could' legally, but people did!) fewer people found it the most convenient option to drive. And the people who did still drive did go onto surrounding roads but spread over a few in a couple of directions, so it isn't the scrum it was when everyone wanted to be on the one road the school was on. They're almost certainly going to do the same at our school and I'm very much in favour of this.

Parking at DSs primary is like the Wild West.

The worst bit of parking ever seen was a parent completely mounting the kerb, continuing along the footpath behind the zebra crossing, and finally parking on the pavement, with a metal fence separating her from the road.

The headteacher was at the school gate on the opposite side of the zebra crossing completely speechless.

They have traffic wardens on mopeds regularly ticketing, but when they're not there everyone is on the zig zags and double yellow lines.