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?

Maybe child benefits should ALSO be linked to trackers, and people driving to school would lose all entitlement 😂

Plenty of dads parking appallingly outside our primary school tbh. I think they’re the worst offenders! Not sure this is a gendered issue.

There's been a couple of school parking threads recently on our local Facebook page. You wouldn't believe the excuses that they come up with to justify why they park like a twat where they do. It's absolutely bonkers. There's a free public car park nearby but they don't use it. And at least half of them could walk there anyway. You can't argue with stupid.
Yes they damn well should be fined. Unfortunately the LA/police don't have the resources to deal with it. It's every school in the area.

Good! I'm glad these irresponsible idiots are being fined. IMHO it should be more. 😡

I drove past my DC's old primary school a couple of days ago. The street was lined with parked cars. They were overhanging / blocking driveways, parked on the yellow zig-zags, engines running, cars parked FULLY on the footpath, completely blocking it, forcing children and carers to walk in the road....not to mention the ones who drive and park the wrong way (it's a one way street) ......utterly incompetent, selfish imbeciles, the lot of them.

ETA - oh, and one of the "fully parking on the pavement" idiots is a mum who regularly drives with her kids not in a car seat, and they are jumping all over the car whilst she drives. 🤦‍♀️

For the twats that park on the pavements outside DCs school gates, I can't wait for the day DC accidentally scratches their car with his scooter/bike. I keep praying but his reactions are too damn fast.

I lived a good 15 mins walk away from the school so driving was the only option

In the past, children would walk 15 minutes to school on their own.

I once knew a lady who was head of a village school. She said she had one parent who lived the other side of the village green, and would put her son in the car to drive him round the green, rather than walk him across. Or let him walk across alone - she could have watched him from the front of her house.

It's an astonishing lack of self awareness to decide to tell a local paper that you park illegally around a school. You might as well ask them to print an article that says, "I'm an arsehole".

100% agree. Self entitled nobodies with attitude that goes past mars.

Absolutely deserve the fines, the no parking restrictions outside schools aren’t there for fun. Just wish the local traffic wardens/ police would call at our local school occasionally

I purposely park a couple of streets away from the school as I can't be arsed with the chaos of the main road next to the school. One woman insists on parking on the zig zags every day and makes it a nightmare to get through sometimes as people park on the other side.

There is a school at the top of my road. Next to it, on the same side of the road is a totally unrestricted free carpark. So you just walk down the pavement, no crossing or anything and it’s next door to the school

people instead park opposite the school on a T junction to get their kids across the road
make it make sense

Our school isn't as bad as many describe but still get bad parking every day. I park a bit away from the school and I always get a space because only a few other parents park there. Once you go round the corner onto the street the school is on, it's madness. People don't usually park on the zigzags but they do park opposite which I believe is not allowed. We have to cross a t junction and my eldest was nearly knocked over by a lady driving a large SUV and deciding to reverse back into the junction, partly not her fault as she couldn't see to get out with two other big SUVs, bonnets were chest height on me, parked on the junction. One family lives a 5-10 min walk along a largely traffic free road and yet the mum and the dad often drives and expects to park right outside the school (the mum doesn't work). The mum said teachers should park further away so parents can park closer. 🙄 Another lives 10-15 min walk away and she also parks either illegally or not sensibly as close as poss. Also leaves engine running with her other kids in the car while she goes into school to drop off / pick up.

I believe parents' insistence of parking as close as they can to the school is damaging their DC. As their DC believe that their parent(s) can park as close as they can to swimming pool/McDs/hospital department/theme park entrance etc in a similar fashion to the schools.

No it does not. Then DC have tantrums, refuse to walk. If the parent(s) made their DC walk the whole distance or a couple of streets, the DC won't question, have tantrums etc about walking anywhere outside school as it will be second nature.

Parents are damaging their DC's awareness of safety and healthy living.

I live fairly close to a nursery and generally it is fine for me but a nightmare for those a bit closer with all kinds of parking arseholery going on . We did find someone parked on our drive one morning which made me extremely cross, well completely furious.

Grew up backing onto a school and lived by one for 20 years and know there will be the odd problem but it seems to be getting worse and worse now. Hopefully more people will get fined.

It always the same twats that park on the zigzags, double yellows, across people's drives and even on people's drives. Our school is fortunate to have use of the local football ground and local pub car parks which the school regularly remind parents of, not one of the twats use them. The car parks are maximum 2 minutes walk away. I've seen they are also the same people who park in parent and child with no child in the car at 9.15 after the school run. I've regularly seen one of the parking twats in the disabled spaces all across town (no they do not have a blue badge). There are 6 key offenders at our school.

There is land rover woman where the only off roading her land rover does is parking on the path.

There is posh porche guy whose car couldn't possibly be parked next to anyone else, he does park in the car park but either across multiple spaces or on the grass (the pub has asked people not to park on the grass as it churns up the beer garden), there is more than enough concrete space to park, no-one needs to park on the grass.

There is personalised numberplate white Audi (both the man and the woman) who are both far too important to get out of their car. Instead they double park in the road right outside the school gate, flick the hazards on whilst their DC get out the car and walk into the school gate. They do not move until precious DC have made it through the school gate.

There is black BMW man who believes parking in the car park is below him and instead chooses to park on the narrow access road for the football club car park causing a huge bottleneck into and out of the car park. Its not like he is late there and makes a speedy getaway after pick up. He parks there at least half an hour before school starts and finishes and always let's his children play in the play park in the attached recreation ground for half an hour after school.

Black Lexus who always parks on someone's drive. Every week we get an email asking that the black Lexus with number plate AB72XYZ please not park on people's drives.

Black top of the range customised range rover who does all of the above depending on the day of the week and his mood. Plus his current favourite which is rivalling personalised number plate white Audi for the spot outside the school gate to double park and watch his precious DC go to school but he also waits (double parked, blocking the road) with his engine idling until the DC go into the school from the playground. If white Audi beats him to it he decides to either park behind black BMW man causing further blockage or takes a leaf out of porche's book and parks across 4 spaces because heaven forbid anything touches his matt black custom paint job.

They all deserve huge fines. Sadly I don't think it would deter any of them. I know for a fact top of the range customised range rover cares not for fines, I often see his car parked across 4 spaces, in disabled parking bays (he usually parks so he's taking at least 2 up, on double yellow lines, parked on the path.

100% agree and wish they would actually put weighting on ability to get to school sustainably on the entry criteria or enforce having to go to school you are in catchment for (for state schools) and get there sustainably or use the wraparound, if you need to shoot off you need wraparound!! Reply was meant to the OP

In Scotland, many local authorities are combining schools and I can understand that some parents have ended up further away from a school than planned.
Our local authority painted a cycle lane on the road outside a mega school and parents regularly park on it. Hard to understand how it is OK to put other people's kids at risk in traffic.

Parents park on the zig zag zebra crossing lines near our primary, and also on double yellow lines near a busy crossroads. It’s so dangerous, selfish and irresponsible. Other drivers cannot see at the crossroads. Also there has been a couple of near misses on the zebra crossing probably as people cannot see as well but also other idiots driving and not paying enough attention and/or not driving slowly / carefully (which is ludicrous at school pick up time). There’s lots of drivers who don’t deserve to be on the road. Unfortunately there’s a lot of talk but we don’t have traffic wardens nearby so they get away with it.

Everyone’s always got an excuse as to why they need to park close as possible and why they should park illegally.

Well tough titties. Your little Timmy or your excuse is no better than anyone else’s

Flex your hours, use a child minder, use before school club.

Zero excuse for shitty parking other than being an inconsiderate asshole who thinks their wants are more than others safety.

I agree. There's always been a lot of crap talking about "school run" traffic, as though getting children to the place they are legally required to be - unlike most adult commuters - was a lesser category of journey than all others.

Now though with the proliferation of resident parking schemes and the nimbyism they encourage, there's another very vocal, usually middle class cohort who lose their minds at the thought of people parking on "their" street, for fifteen minutes twice a day during the 188 days a year that schools are open and their whining has found purchase with councils keen to be "doing something" about the environment, including making public roads funded and maintained by taxation inaccessible to the general public.

It's all incredibly parochial yet every time the subject comes up people are so keen to fulminate about selfish drivers they don't actually think about solutions that take account of the reality that driving a child to school and then driving to work yourself (which accounts for most school -related traffic) is neither illegal nor outlandish behaviour and making it more difficult or telling people to stop is not going to help.

The issue stems from working hours and commutes that don't work with school.

Breakfast clubs are expensive, not all schools have them and they are frankly usually appalling in terms of quality of childcare. Its depressing.

So you get mum, who drops the kids at 8.30 when the gate opens and bombs off because her commute is 30 mins and she has to be there by 9. No, she can't walk 15 mins to school then walk it back to get the car for work because then she's late for work.

When i was a kid mum could drop the kid in the playground at 8.15. It didn't cost, there was little/no supervision.
It was your risk, you just left DC there.

But you could dash home & get the car and still get to work on time.

The parents need to sort something else out then, other childcare, other schools, other jobs. Parking on the zigzags is never acceptable. Putting kids at risk so you’re not late for work is shameful.

Isn’t the Mumsnet motto pretty much move house, change jobs or get a better job.

None of those include risking other children’s or adults live by parking inconsiderately making it more dangerous to try and walk to school.

To be clear

I don't drive my kids to school

But at my school i see that its often the poorer mums with fewer options. They can't just "get a different job". Breakfast club would cripple them financially for ten minutes of childcare.

I work on a school site and walk along the road next to it every morning. Every morning the same cars stop by the gates and let their year 5 or 6 children out to walk through the gates. It's only two or three people.

There are always spaces available to pull in - a 10-20 second longer walk for the child along a one-way residential street. Very safe. But no, little darling must be dropped within sight of the school gates, blocking all the other cars who have let their child out before the zigzags.

Just pure entitlement. "Doesn't apply to me, it only takes a few seconds". Doesn't matter. Only takes a few seconds for a child to walk in front of your car while you're distracted watching your 10 year old walk through the gate as you pull away.