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?

Zero sympathy from me. Our village school is at the end of our cul de sac. I'm very tolerant of the parking either end of the school day & time any car journeys to not clash with school times. However, the way some morons park & wait an emergency vehicle would never get through.
And the amount of cf I caught on my door camera turning round on my drive when i was at work made my blood boil. Now I'm retired & my car is on my drive they've suddenly stopped. If they park safely then no fines, problem solved!

Men ARE doing just as much school runs as mums 😂Yes, they actually ARE already expected to park a few streets away 🙄

I am not sure we should be proud that women can park just as badly as men, and are just as entitled and dickish.

there is never enough safe, legal parking near schools.
there is. You just need to get off your lazy arse and accept to walk for 2 mn.

You would think keeping kids safe would be a priority, especially for (mostly mothers)? No?

forced to park as safely as possible
are you for real here?

It's the same near our local primary school - a large car park less than 5 minutes away but parents still park on double yellows and dropped kerbs. I would put points on their licence - maybe the thought that they wouldn't be able to drive for a few months might help?

I wish the fines were much HIGHER, and given more often. If you double them and give the difference to school funding, everybody would benefit. Parents might even learn how to park - they seem to manage ok when they're not around a school.

Catchment or no catchment makes no difference. The majority are lazy parents who drive on any distance if they are not living literally opposite the school gates.

Maybe there should be number plate recognition and automatic bills? Injury and disability aside, the closer you live from the school, the higher the parking bill. If it would take you less than 15mn to walk to the school, up the parking bill to £100 a time or something .

People were ready to riot to have the right to walk during the lockdown, lets' give them back that right to walk 😂

We bought a house very close to a school so I try not to moan about this as, well, we chose it.

That said, there is just no excuse for dangerous parking, especially where kids will be crossing.

Some parents are just so entitled.

Many councils are on their knees and if they need to recoup some money I'd absolutely back vigorous ticketing around schools at drop off and pick up.

Just park further out and walk your kids in, FFS!

Are you having a laugh?
This has nothing to do with the sex of the parent doing the drop off and everything to do with the selfish unsafe parking of parents who think that they and their precious dc are more important than all the other children, parents, pedestrians and road users. If parents parked legally in designated parking spots and not over people drives/drop kerbs, on double yellow lines and at/over junctions it would be safer for everyone

YANBU when I get the bus to work I get off a couple of stops early because it's quicker to walk than stay on the bus for the 2 changes of lights it takes for the bus to turn right due to the entitled parents parked on double yellows.

A hundred yards away, at the other side of the school, parents stop on the urban dual carriageway so that Tarquin and Jocasta can unload their lacrosse racquets and cello without having to lump them more than 20 yards to the school.

Each individual parent and their car is gone before wardens can do anything but it's dozens of parents for a couple of minutes each time.

That's your most ludicrous? I've heard worse.

How about this gem my sister once came out with - "I have a car, I pay a lot of money for it, so I shouldn't have to walk!! I will park as close as I can because I paid to do so, and if they're going to make it illegal to park where I want, I deserve a refund".

Parents parking at schools act like animals. They will claim they need to park close someone safe for little Tommy. Making it unsafe for everyone else.

The amount of times people have nearly been hit by other parents on the zebra crossing is crazy. Double parking. Verge parking. Yellow line parking. Arsholes.

If I ran the country I’d remove their license 😅

Are your sister's children Jocasta and Tarquin?

I remember when DS was at primary school, by year 5 his conditions had progressed to the point he couldn’t walk to school and manage the day at school so I parked an estate away about 3 mins walk (at his slow pace) to school. Most days a mum in a house close by was putting her able bodied children in the car driving them in and then coming straight back after.

the same mum also posted on FB in year 6 complaining she was told her child was obese…..

No sympathy. The engine idling at my kids’ old school was even worse than the bad parking. I used to have to walk to the school through clouds of noxious fumes.

Many of the men doing the runs were the worst offenders (too busy and important to park a street away). And most likely to swear at you if you dared challenge them.

To be fair a lot of parents drop off on the way to work, I always did (but I didn't park like a twat).
I lived a good 15 mins walk away from the school so driving was the only option

Yanbu. I used to take photos and report them to the council and school so the parking wardens could visit. They were always the nightmare parents that I avoided.

The idiots with engine idling do give me the rage, bonus point when they have the music or the phone so loud everyone can enjoy it.

How can people have so little care for their own children is a mistery.

I witnessed a father who was parked outside the primary school on zigzag lines arguing with a traffic warden who was telling him that he couldn't park there.

Live directly across from a primary school and the drop off/pick up is wild! Entitled parents parking on double yellows, disabled bays, zig zags etc… there is an abundance of parking a 2 min walk from the gates but that’s too far for the SUV brigade to walk. Young child was hit by a car last year due to selfish parking which resulted in weeks of the police monitoring drop off/ pick up times and had a great effect unfortunately that couldn’t continue and we are back to the disgusting entitlement selfish behaviour from these parents.

I couldn't let mine walk the one minute walk to primary school even in P7 because there was a road to cross at a T junction and parents parked so close to the junction that they couldn't see to cross safely. One mum lived a street over but still drove to school (she didn't work so didn't have the excuse of dropping on the way to work).

Fathers do many school runs and can also park and walk to the school gate. Preferably leave the car at home and walk the whole way. It’s perfectly safe walking on pavements.

I do the school run in the car as we live in the next village. Buses don't come to our village. We knew this when we picked the house so it is what it is. However, I do park a little further away from the school in order to avoid the school choas. But I start work at 9:15am so I have an extra few minutes to be-able to do this.

Some of the parents who drive live a 10 minute walk away. I've also seen some ridiculous, thoughtless parking.

What annoys me is that my DD goes to a brand new school. Brand new. Yet no thought was put into where parents were going to park and how to make the roads safe. No double yellow lines, carpark, safe crossings or anything. There is going to be a couple of local shops nearby at some point with a carpark but the school opened 3 years ago and they haven't even started building the shops yet.

Our local primary school put double yellow lines down in the summer holidays outside the school and the road towards the school at the crossroads as it would jam up horribly at school times.

I work as a lollipop lady for the school at the crossroads and it’s safer now people can’t park as much on the actual crossroads but some people still ignore it.

There are no excuses there are four different car parks less than a five min walk from school and all free, for at least the first two hours. And I’m at the crossroads that is the dangerous spot to cross near three of the said car parks!

We had an entitled tosser at my dcs old school

The world was his and nobody else mattered

The school had yellow zig-zags outside on the 'front' of the school but if you wanted to drop your child off,you could drive to the car park at the 'back' (it's hard to explain)

Tosser would park at the front and throw his precious kids out at the front,on the zig-zags,rather than drive down and have them walk back up and round to the playground

This went on for a few years,until he got caught and fined

Now anyone else would have coughed up and not done it again

Not entitled wanker-he refused to pay,went running to the local paper with his missus at his side (who was just as entitled),both with sad faces,a made up story about how this was a one off as his child was very ill (big lie-he did this every bloody day) and made a huge fuss about how he shouldn't have to pay

He was still kicking off on his appeal (he lost and the fine went up)

He tried to threaten legal action and tried to get in touch with national papers to 'tell his side of the story'

I dont know what happened after that as my dc left the school to go to secondary

Best laugh is,he lived about a 5 minute walk from the school-we lived 30 minutes away and walked every morning

All that fuss because he didnt want his dc to walk a few extra yards

He was in the papers a few years later,very upset as the school told him that his kids where obese and needed more exercise/less junk

We live behind a secondary school now and the parents entitlement is off the scale

We often have the ends of our street blocked,cannot get into our own house as they park on the pavement blocking access,on our drive,on the corners so nobody can get past and park on the bit where the coaches wait so they cant get into an already tight spot

Something needs to be done

I'm a woman who manages to drive the kids to school and park legally and safely even if I have to park a bit further away. It takes 5 minutes (I timed it) to walk from the far end of the street where there is plenty of free space to park, that's really all it is. If I can I'll park closer but if 5 minutes causes people to be consistently late then they really need to sort out their time management.

I get how hard it is to get everybody ready and out the house, I do it every day and have to get myself to work too. Many days it's brought me to tears with frustration but it is doable. I've had to make sure I'm organised the night before because as soon as there is a lost shoe then it all turns to pot. We still manage to do the 5 minute walk though because I always aim to leave earlier than I need to to allow for issues.

my son actually goes to one of those schools, didn’t expect that when I opened the article!
I have to drive my son to school as we live 3 miles away, the buses are always full and he has disabilities that would make that difficult anyway. But we park in a car park 5-10 mins away from the school so he walks to and from there the rest of the way.
The parking around the school is absolutely horrendous (I did it once when he started there, never again) and the irony of a parent saying she parks there as her dd was run over when it’s all the bad parking and congestion that causes accidents! I know of at least 3 children who have been run over near the school.
Anyway, I completely applaud the police for doing this and hope they continue although I doubt it will make much difference.

I my area the same, if not worse than the mothers. I have never seen mothers park on the zigzags of the crossing near the school, I have seen a number of men
but I agree parents should park further away and walk in