Parents parking cars right by school entrances probably making DC unable to walk moderate distances

[nfg]

Where I live, schools are starting the new school year this week. Start date depends on school and the school year.

Parents want to park as close to the entrances to make children walk less.

As well as the dangerous parking which can endanger children. I believe children develop a concept of they think they can be dropped right by places. They probably can’t cope with walking moderate distances such as visiting a shop inside a shopping centre, theme parks, tourist attractions, airports etc. As i have seen kids in supermarkets complaining that they have to walk. They are 8/9 years old and then resort to sit inside the trolley.

Parents let your DC walk further!

Our primary school breakfast club was rather expensive. No all schools do this free and it's not affordable for many esp if you have multiple children.

If they can afford a car in our lords year 2025 they're not poor. Hell I can't even afford driving lessons let alone the car and I don't consider myself poor

My DH has a daily struggle with this. He is the site manager for a middle school and he has an assistant, they both now have to take turns to stay outside ensuring cars don't go into the carpark because the barrier is broken and it's too expensive to fix. The parents have called them all sorts of names, but 1. it means that the staff can't park and 2. The children walking in are at risk of getting hit. The staff cars have been scraped etc because it's not the sort of carpark you can do a 3 point turn in. Anyway, just before breaking up for the holidays one woman refused to move her car, no other cars could move but my DH said she had to turn around and go back and she started screaming at him in front of everyone. He didn't particularly care but other parents were furious and reported her. It came back that she was 'dysregulated' and there was no apology. Made me so angry that she used a word like that to cover up the fact she was having an adult tantrum! Just park somewhere else and walk!!

I used to go to my friends and walk the last bit, about 4 minutes walk to school. Half way there a girl from DDs class would be bundled into a car to be driven, but to the opposite side of the school. They actually walked further. And think people lose their minds.

There is a football place right next to DDs school, you can use the carpark. Instead, loads of parents double park right out side the exit and then do illegal u turns in the road holding up the traffic.
several times people have double parked on both sides completely blocking the road which is an access road/used by buses between 2 towns.

Round here the parents mostly park at the common and walk the 1/4 mile down to the school.

Think the problem of parking has got worse with parents able to apply for a place for their DC at schools miles away. In the old days, you went to the school based on postcode and secondary/high schools were feeders for the primary school. If wanted to get DC to a school outside the area, you moved home.

Parents apply for their DC to a school with an excellent reputation without any thought of how they going to get to the school. It’s the schools with excellent reputation round here seem to have the worst problems with ignorant and selfish parking

Out of curiosity are there noise complaints? I don’t think I could hack the beeping

We used to live in a little village, dc used to walk to the village primary. All perfectly safe until they were outside of the school because of people trying to drop at the gate rather than in the car park and tractors trying to get past parents parking illegally on the narrow road.

In the end a (very kind) friend used to meet them down the road (I was at work) to navigate the chaos.

Maybe when new schools are planned they could take into account the fact that they are buildings visited by many people including some people who arrive by car. That would be totally normal if you're visiting a shopping centre or a hospital or going to your work, it's only at school that we have to recreate the 1950s by acting as though there's a parent (the mum, we say parent but it's always the mum) who has time to walk the kids down to the school.

you can’t even drive down the block our local school is on so no one is parking near it. Mind you the catchment area is so tight it’s no more than a ten minute walk max.
The council/school should restrict stopping right in front of the school.
However I don’t know kids who won’t walk anywhere.

It’s definitely getting worse. I have worked in the same school for six years. The car park is tiny and only big enough for the teachers to park. I usually arrive by 8.20 and used get one the first spaces on the road when I first started. However over the years, it has got
worse and worse until I would say there’s a dozen cars in front of me by the time I arrive at 8.20. They are full of children waiting as the gates don’t open until 8.40. It seems people arrive early to secure a space near the school. It’s crazy and annoying for me! I refuse to leave any earlier just so I can park close to my place of work. I officially start at 8.30 as it is.

I used to live opposite a school and there was absolutely zero consideration of parking. Across driveways and even on driveways! Yellow lines meant nothing. One way meant nothing. I used to see parents park up an hour before pick up just so they could claim the best parking, and it was always the same ones. Always with their engines running too 🙄

We had similar. 10 minute walk to school that DC could have safely completed unaccompanied from a young age. Except for the last 50 yards, crossing the street the school was on.
Get the school to ask Traffic Wardens to attend. Word will soon spread as soon as some tickets are issued. (Only temporary solution, sadly.)

My DD complains about having to walk to the car from our house.... the car on our driveway. But happily walked over 20k steps at Disneyland.

I wouldn't take the complaining or the drive as any indication of the child's ability to put one foot in front of the other.

This whole thread is weird. I park as close to the school as I can, we live in walking distance. But I’m a busy working mum who has to drop kids at childcare (not walking distance) drop kids at school and get to the office 3 days a week since I work full time. When I pick them up a couple of days a week I am dashing out from my work desk and heading straight to their various sports trainings sessions so driving.
My kids brains are great thank you, and they are all athletic, one of the school aged ones is a talented cross country runner and both of the school aged kids also play football and basketball. I won’t apologise for having a job.

Lazy journalism again? How tedious!

Ok, I’ll bite.

DS catches a designated school bus so is dropped off inside the school premises. There are about 6 school buses as we are in a rural location. The majority of the kids living in the town all walk to school as far as I can see.

Once they’re teenagers, they tend to spend time with their mates wandering around the town or to each others houses etc. so plenty of walking and definitely more walking than some of their parents IMO.

I had a pram for my first but found it cumbersome and was glad to be rid of it. When ever I could, I had always used a carrier. But that usually made me quite hot and sore so once DC could walk I would carry in my arms and then put him down when I needed a break. It means now he can't ever remember being carried or pushed on a walk so using his legs is all he knows! Similar with second DC but I never had a pram at all. Carrier and then arms. I probably carried him a bit longer as I tend to baby him a bit. Then only time he ever complained is when we walked up a local hill that's the highest in our county. He did it though at 2.5 years old.

It's an absolute pain when people park so badly. I do sympathise with the needing to drive though if you're heading to work. My child's breakfast club starts at 7.45. I need to be in work by 8.15 latest, a 25 minite drive away. I will park as close as safely possible, so I can run and get there on time.

Yep when you take kids on a school trip where they have to walk for 30 minutes then they all whinge to high heaven. At that age I was up Scafell Pike and these can't walk into town from the school.

Also because they get ferried everywhere they never bring them properly dressed for forest school because in the car they don;t need a thick coat and think a thin coat is fine. Then they get arsey when they are told it is not enough. "Don't tell me how to dress my child." response to that! They don't spend enough time outside to realise how cold it can be. A quick hope from the car into a building isn't long enough to feel the cold properly.

We live a 2 minute walk from my DD primary. No one ever parks outside our house. Get to school and there are cars parked in weird places, dipped curbs ignored. Parking officers in regular attendance and emails to parents about parking. I just don’t get it!

Girl from my DD class lives round the corner from us, we walk every day, they drive (not because of work needs). mum says to me you are all so good walking every day (it’s a 5 min walk) mine hate walking so we have to drive!!!!!! No joke! My kids ask to take the car a lot but I never back down.
the worst part is they actually have to leave earlier than me for pick up so they can bag a space near to the school gates!

When I worked in a school and it was proposed that parent’s cars would no longer be allowed on the campus, the meeting collapsed into a baying mob! I genuinely thought the chair of governors was going to be attacked.

The biggest concern from the parents was the safety of their own child, yet would speed into the staff car park, disgorge their offspring and whizz out - totally oblivious about the safety of others!

We appealed to good will but it was ignored, so a gate was installed, and unbelievably parents still
opened the gate to drive in. Finally, the school had to resort to a padlock which meant staff had to get out of their cars to open and lock it behind them, but certain individuals would STILL try and slip in behind.

And yes, we had the 2:00pm space reservers, despite the school being in a village with free parking 5 minutes walk away and school finishing at 3:15. On a warm afternoon, some would even wind down their windows with the radio blaring away. Not helpful in a nearby classroom also with windows open.

YANBU to think that people should park considerately, and use active travel more. There's lots of evidence about how this affects air pollution, accident rates etc.

However YABU to think that kids would magically transform their attitudes.

We have a 15 minute walk to school, and have only taken the car a handful of times in 3 years. It is still torture to try to get my kid to walk more than a few hundred metres. By contrast, he'd happily cycle for hours. Some kids just hate walking.

kids school on a school street zero cars allowed - nobody can drive anywhere near the school. everyone walks or cycles.

This is maddness

I know people judge us for driving my 6 year old to school when we don’t live very far away, but he’s autistic and hyper mobile (gets mobility component of DLA, but no one else would know that) and only just copes with school, let alone the walk either side. I’d much rather walk!