Have zero sympathy for parents for parents being fined for breaking parking rules outside schools

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https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/parents-slam-school-parking-madness-10674874?utm_source=mynewsassistant.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=embedded_search_item_desktop

Parents are moaning about CoL with fines parking on double yellow, zig zags etc.

One stupid quote from a parent
"I don’t understand why the fines are being handed out anyway. For those who park up more than 30 minutes at a time, fair enough they should be fined but for those who park for 10 minutes there needs to be more understanding."
"Times are hard as it is anyway and adding that extra expense of the ticket, on top of living costs rising is just unnecessary. Its putting more pressure on parents. The money I spent on that fine could be spent on putting a smile on my child’s face."

Well if you read the Highway Code, leave a few minutes earlier and get your DC to walk either from home or park down a side street (not on parking restricted lines/bays) about 5 min walk from the school, you won't risk getting a fine.

No sympathy from me.

I believe the removing the boundaries for parents to apply for their DC to attend schools outside catchment areas isn't doing this any favours. In the old days when I was at school, if you wanted your DC to attend a certain school, you moved home.

Also what are the chances are these parents are driving newish (less than 3 years old) cars that cost them £50k?

Parents lose their minds outside schools. The double yellows, zig zags etc are there to keep the children, including their children, safe.

No sympathy whatsoever. I actively applaud the traffic warden handing out tickets outside my kids schools to the twats parking on the zig zags.

I always wonder what would happen if it were men who did the majority of school runs. Would they be expected to park "a few" streets away and walk? Or would we have by now realised the issue staring us in the face that kids need to get to school conveniently and safely. We can provide parking for work places but there is never enough safe, legal parking near schools. But no, let's keep demonising parents (mostly mothers) who are juggling multiple kids, often under 5's, who are forced to park as safely as possible and shepherd kids in and out of the educational institutions they are legally obliged to go to.

Sorry but there is absolutely no excuse for bad parking and risking the lives of children. Leave earlier. Park multiple streets away and walk if required. If the generation before us and the generation before that could do it then there is absolutely no reason why our generation can’t.

If less parents drove and parked like that's around schools, it would be safer for children to walk or cycle to school alone, so therefore less parents needed on the school run.

Save petrol money and walk! (I know many can’t but for many it is more than feasible as is parking further away)

SOME parents seem to lose any last common sense they have when it comes to parking at school. I do sometimes wonder if they think their child will melt if they get a bit wet.

Don't worry, plenty of fathers do the school run round here and guess what......loads of them park like entitled prats as well! There is no excuse for parking dangerously, yet so many seem to think the rules don't apply to them at school run times. It's disgusting.

Oh naff off, this isn't a gender thing, if Mumsnet is anything it's proof that both men and women can be dickheads. And parking on double yellows or zigzags outside a school makes you a dickhead. It's not only inconsiderate and lazy, it's dangerous.

Park legally while you "shepherd" your kids or pay the consequences, it's not complicated.

I do think the kids 'melt' when it rains. Unsure if its the kids or the parents presume this.

I don’t care if it’s an alien from outer space doing the school run. You still park legally and safely!

Parking in restricted zones near schools isn’t safe, that’s the whole point.

Well done Leicester for fining the selfish fuckers whose precious offspring won't walk the length of themselves.

Wish our council would do the same.

Another thing that happens outside schools including these in the article. The parents leave the cars parked as close to the school as possible all day. Someone such as a fellow parent or a relative pick them up then drop them off about 15 mins before the school finishes for the day. These cars are not around during non school days. Unsure if this practice happens in other parts of the UK.

These schools should have no parking restrictions during the school hours plus an hour either side of the school hours.

Yes, well done to this council. These car-driving sewer rats deserve far heavier fines, in my opinion.

Lol. I do park legally thanks. Think you've missed the point though. I never said it was ok to park illegally. I said that as a society we do not place any priority on getting kids to school safely by ensuring that parents have safe, legal, easily accessible points for drop off and pick up. And part of that is a general lack of value for children and the people caring for children in our society.

They're not being demonised and no one is forcing them to break the law

How ridiculous

There are plenty of ways to get children to school safely. But too many parents decide that’s not for them and put other children at risk as a result!

Double the fine for each occurrence. First fine £100, second £200. 3rd £400. There is no time lapse either. So you may had two fines in Sept then nothing until May and that fine will be £400. Also no fine refresh at the start of new school years either.

If that does not teach parents a hard lesson, nothing will.

I agree, but I can imagine all the pitiful "sad face" photographs in the local paper/Facebook pages, clutching the letter containing the fine!

I think part of the issue is more and more schools (in Scotland at least) are being combined into one campus rather than the local primaries and high schools that had a couple of miles of walkable catchment area.

They can't possibly provide parking for everyone that needs it, the councils don't join up the dots. We have a new school campus and the council refused a one-way road system through the residential area because it would add too many "local miles" onto journeys, so now there's bottlenecks every morning as the buses try and turn into and out of the road, as cars try and turn right and left into the same road). And the poor lollipop wardens spend an hour running across between junctions and trying not to hold up too many cars at a time and make the whole thing worse.

But I agree that people who park like twats should not be exempt from the rules of the road.

Also building new build estates with no new schools so the parents have to travel further.

When schools were built, future proofing wasn't initiated

I have zero sympathy I’m afraid.

I only drive to school a handful of times a year as it’s too stressful to drive. I have to be parked at least 45 minutes before school finishes which is crazy. I had to drive for pick up one day last week as I needed to get home quickly for a meeting. I was clearly in someone’s “space” as she pulled up and death stared me shaking her head and proceeded to park right on a bend with double yellows.

The absolute state I see of some of the parked cars around school begs belief. God forbid little Tilly has to walk a few steps poor lamb 🙄

Good!

And no, I really don’t think we should be wasting public funds on carparks for people who don’t want to adequately organise their lives.

It used to be chaos outside our sons old school, people driving on pavements while children were walking along them, completely halting the flow of traffic etc. They once prevented an ambulance being able to access the school. Virtually all the roads around were permit only, so I was very pleased when the road school was on became a school street.

I agree new schools or extended schools should have a parking plan (that doesn't include parking in residents only zone). But many schools are in already located on narrow roads.

Saying that... our Secondary regularly sends our reminders about the car park that can be used by parents. Still parents park in the bus bay.

At our school there is a carpark which is about a 3 minute walk from the back gate of the school. Men and women still park like twats out the front on the zigzags and double yellows. Even worse when it rains, they park across the dropped kerb crossing.

Even with safe and convenient alternatives people are still idiots because they think they’re so important they need to save that extra 30 seconds and it doesn’t matter if they put anyone in danger doing that.