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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

4 x 4 driver, dropping off privately educated boy outside my house, on the pavement, forcing my son out of the way!

246 replies

SlartyBartFast · 23/11/2009 10:22

garrrr

he came out of the house, pissing down raining cats and dogs, to cross the road to catch the bus, this woman in a huge black 4 by 4 drove him off the pavement to drop off her precious
i was fuming.
despite being in my dressing gown i really wanted to go out and bang on her window

OP posts:
MintyCane · 23/11/2009 11:41

noses obviously

fannybanjo · 23/11/2009 11:41

exactly pagwatch. When my daughter went to a private nursery attached to an independent school, the parents were the least snobby people I have ever met.

LynetteScavo · 23/11/2009 11:42

YABU not to charge out in your dressing gown with your wild bed hair and tell her exactly what you thought of her.

Seriously though...telephone the school and tell them parents are being inconsiderate - at teh very least they should aske parents in the school news letter to be more careful.

Poledra · 23/11/2009 11:43

Just for the record, my DD goes to state school, she walks there (as it's only 5 minutes along the road) and the Bus only has blacked-out windows in the back. So I don't get to pick my nose undisturbed by onlookers......

SlartyBartFast · 23/11/2009 11:43

that is a good idea lynette!
thanks

OP posts:
StripeyKnickersSpottySocks · 23/11/2009 11:44

Ha ha, I'm a state school driver with a 2nd hand Skoda.

I'm currently conducting an unofficial survey on cars that park on the double yellow lines outside the shop a couple of dooors down from me. I'm not actually sad enough to write figures down but I would say that a good 70% of them are 4x4s. Now seeing as 4x4s probably account for less than 20% of vehicles round here thats a high proportion. None of the drivers are disabled, just too bloody lazy to walk 10 yards. So I do agree about sense of entitlement.

SlartyBartFast · 23/11/2009 11:44

off to google that tie!

OP posts:
fannybanjo · 23/11/2009 11:46

Unfortunately though, when you buy a house that is very near to a school you have to put up with the scramble for spaces that parents have to endure to drop their LO off. Gone are the days when 7 year olds walk a mile to school like we did. Never in a month of Sundays would my mum have driven to our local school to drop us all off. We all walked. Times have changed so much and not for the better.

You obviously don't have to put up with dangerous driving though, do as LynetteScavo says, contact the headteacher and complain.

Quattrofangs · 23/11/2009 11:46

Well 4x4s are unreasonableish and bad/dangerous driving is absolutely out of order, but why on earth was it relevant that the other boy was privately educated?

For you, the independent education thing seems to be just another reason to hate the woman but not entirely reasonable IMO

pagwatch · 23/11/2009 11:46

that at the end of page two OP finally gets some help.

When I complained about the parents from the school opposite blocking my drive and therefore DS2's bus, the Head was really great and sent a notice to the parents. It didn't stop it but it did help.

fannybanjo · 23/11/2009 11:48

I would never block someones drive, that is bloody annoying and ignorant.

Morloth · 23/11/2009 11:51

Well if poor people would learn to keep their ferals children out of the way, there wouldn't be so many accidents.

I want one of those open topped Jeep Wrangler jobbies like Lara Croft drives.

ImSoNotTelling · 23/11/2009 12:03

Blanked out windows started in US I'm sure, gangsta style, so that no=one could see what nefarious activites people up to in there/identify people driving if there was trouble. If you're going to do a drive by shooting you don't do in from a convertible put it that way.

Darkened glass thus became sign of money and prestige in gangsta culture, and as so many of these things has filtered down to mainstream.

Fact remains that darkened glass was originally there so that people cold not see who was driving/what was going on, people do behave worse if no-one can see them, psychologically puts a barrier between driver and those around them.

Like US soldiers in Iraq being told to remove shades when talking to people so as to seem more human and less intimidating, eye contact is very important in human communication.

Man I hate dark glass in cars. Anything which further separates the driver from those around them can only be a bad thing.

Fibilou · 23/11/2009 12:05

Well said Pagwatch. The inverse snobbery on here is quite astonishing.

I'm privately educated, as are my parents and all of my friends. It's fine for me to be told I have no experience of the "wider world" (I am a police officer so think this unlikely), am rude, have a sense of entitlement yadda yadda. Because I'm upper middle class and have quite well off parents that's fine, I can have as much thrown at me as you like, perish the thought I can defend myself.

Yet if I said that state school educated children were unruly, undisciplined chavs with parents that can't control them there would be a uproar.

I don't know why some people have such an issue with private schools - we pay twice for our education as we still have to pay it in taxes, schools have to provide charity to state schools yet I have to subsidise it twice through my school fees and the taxes I pay to keep state schools going. If, as so many people on here seem to desire, we all left our private schools and went to state schools (a) the system would go into meltdown wtih the extra bodies (b) there woudl be considerably less money available per head to spend on each pupil.

So think of that when you're slagging us off, yet again.

ImSoNotTelling · 23/11/2009 12:08

Interesting. I was privately educated as well and have absolutely no problem with the OP.

But then I wouldn't drive a 4x4 for love nor money.

WouldYouCouldYouWithaGoat · 23/11/2009 12:10

[tug forlock to fibilou] sorry will try and be more grateful for you contribution to society in future.

frostyfingers · 23/11/2009 12:16

We have a sodding great 4x4 - but unless you know where we live you'd have no idea why, so would presumably be a target for all this snobbery against them. We are in a rural location, where, as I type we have to get through a foot deep flood across the lane, and the main A road into the village is closed and has been on and off for the last three days. No 4x4, no getting out of here and getting children to (dare I say it, their private) school. It's not what you drive, it's how you drive it. I don't assume that if someone is in a 4x4 they are a dangerous snob.

OP you are absolutely right to be hacked off that they drove badly and you should be prepared to give them an earful if it happens again, but as others have said what you drive, and where your children go to school shouldn't be part of your complaint!

1978JCM · 23/11/2009 12:24

If this happened near a school, inform them about or if you know what school the boy goes to. Get them to send a letter home about not putting kids lives in danger!!! PS - I would of gone out, PJ's or not!!

SoupDragon · 23/11/2009 12:27

Shoot them and put their bodies on a bonfire, lit with a flaming torch and prodded with a pitchfork.

Fibilou · 23/11/2009 12:28

"WouldYouCouldYouWithaGoat Mon 23-Nov-09 12:10:14
[tug forlock to fibilou] sorry will try and be more grateful for you contribution to society in future."

Quod erat demonstrandum

Earlybird · 23/11/2009 12:35

pagwatch - second time in 24 hours that I've applauded your posts.

The vitriol, bias, sneering and chippy attitude toward anyone middle class/upper middle class on this site is astonishing.

We've had recent sniping threads on Eton making it's playing fields available to a local state school, constant negative references to 'yummy mummies', topic of 'does this smack of rich young man goes to visit paupers', sweeping generalisations about those who drive 4x4s, constant sniping at those who dare send their child to a private school, sneering at David Cameron because he's posh, educated and went to Eton (and then moving on to more substantive issues like his policies), furious posts about inheritance tax and those who have enough assets to be charged it, etc.

I think most middle class M'netters either make an attempt to downplay/hide their circumstances, post on topics where background/economics aren't evident/don't matter, or don't post at all.

It is beyond tiresome, and I find it deeply offensive. Whatever happened to tolerance and coming together based on the common experience of being women and mothers? When did these differences become a reason to attack someone?

As an 'oldie', i see that many of the posters who I would characterise as middle class or professional no longer post here. I think the atmosphere described above is alot of the reason. Inverse snobbery is poisonous to Mumsnet, and is now the norm rather than the exception.

I've thought about starting a thread called how/why it has become a sin to be middle class on Mumsnet but know it will only degenerate into personal attacks and more sneering/sniping.

I bet anyone who responds to this will flame me, rather than reflecting on whether what i say is true....

WouldYouCouldYouWithaGoat · 23/11/2009 12:39

the only sneery chippy comments on thsi thread are ones like yours earlybird.

DanDruff · 23/11/2009 12:41

ah come on we all want to bash the posh kids.

arf

mumoverseas · 23/11/2009 12:41

Earlybird, I totally agree. No flaming here (but then I do have a 4 x 4 and privately educated little darlings

fannybanjo · 23/11/2009 12:42

Earlybird I wholeheartedly agree with you.

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