The school run

[Lilysmum]

I see the Government have decided to focus on this....

Am I the only person to get infuriated that mums are constantly scapegoated as single handedly responsible for traffic conjestion?

Is there something less valid about going to school than going to a poxy office to sort paper clips into different colours and sizes ? Are the car journeys of a lardy Burton's suited 'professional' geezer who frankly could do with the exercise, somehow more righteous than kids going to school to get an education?

Blimey my daughter is not even old enough to go to school yet and I am still morally indignant about the whole thing

Oh yes lets tell them to cycle to school - as long as we don't mind a phone call from A&E one day to say 'hurry up - junior is in resus with a head injury'

Oh yes lets make them walk to school - just this week there was an attempted abduction of a teenage school girl in broad daylight just down the road from me....

What about mum's who need to go on to work afterwards - they can hardly be expected to walk junior to school, walk back and then hop in the car to go to work....not unless they boss doesn't mind them turning up until elevenses.

Rant over....

Loved the Guardian article. On moving house last week, we thought it best to keep DS in the same nursery for the time being - it used to be a 15 min walk, but now is over 2 miles away. DH and I have been dropping him off and picking him up in the car since then (parking the car near the nursery while at work) and I hate it, hate it, hate it. I would never want to do this permanently. Apart from anything else, on Monday the journal took 13 minutes, and yesterday over 1 hour. For 2.5 miles. But that's another story (good old London).

The journey, not the journal. Oh, and I was stuck in traffic between 6pm and 7pm, not school run time.

I think walking bus schemes are one really good way to reduce traffic at school time. A few years ago Kia put together a pack with every car they sold about how to put together a walking bus.

hi janh, was just about to post the guardian article but you beat me to it! great, isn't it?

jimjams, rush hour round here starts at about 3.15pm and ends at about 6.15pm.

We have two local schools which cater for 3-18 on a quarter mile stretch of road. There's prob around 1100 pupils in one and maybe as many as 1500 in the other.

Letting out time starts at 3.20pm and the final pupils leave at 6pm on buses. In between there are pick-ups for pupils leaving later i.e. further up the school and from after-school clubs. There are also local factories and businesses which finish at around 4.30pm. After that, the people who left work at 5om in the city hit our area! So the traffic is bad most of the late afternoon.

A brilliant article. Fantastic. the talk about school run congestions makes my blood boil too. And all this about how in the summer holidays you don't get so many cars so it must be school run traffic. BOLLOCKS! The reason there are fewer cars is because it is the SUMMER HOLIDAYS! Yes, Mr Executive isn't driving to work in Basildon for the last two weeks in August because he's in Sardinia with his family during the SCHOOL HOLIDAYS. It's soooo bleedin' obvious but will all those blokes (Darling, Livingstone etc) see this? No. Yes, I will walk my son to nursery, but it is about three minutes away up the street and I work from home. It's not that simple for everyone. And why aren't they encouraging office workers to walk to work? Grrrrr.

The death rate of year 6 boys (age 10/11) killed in road accidents is apparently double that of year 7 boys (age 11/12).

That's because the older boys are at secondary school and more of them are taking public transport or walking to school for the first time. OK their parents not taking them to school is another factor, but it still alarms me.

Our school walk would be a brisk 30 minutes up steep hills, so do-able for the 9 year old but not so easy for the 4 year old when he begins school in January.

I drive them to school and nursery then defy convention, park the car and walk or run to work!

I think walking busses are a great idea and hope the recent moves to make this happen will be expanded.

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most of us are to blame i think. just pop to the shops, or pop to the hairdressers, or pop to a friends house in the car - the amount of small journeys which could be avoided is phenominal.

why then the govt is consentrationg particularly on parents who are taking children to school is outragous - when they should consider the lazy population and our short jouneys "popping" here and there as a whole.

the roads are a pleasure to drive on when school holidays are on - but that is becuase the childcare needs are so expensive and inadequade in this country that we all "have" to take our blumin holidays at work to look after our children who are not in school.
rather than taking holidays to go abroad many two parent families can divvy out the school holidays and save on childare costs - but miss out on the fun and memories and experience of going on a holiday.

if the transport infrastructure in this country is so dire that commuters dont know whether they are going to get to work on time - why are parents supposed to risk their childrens education.

my child went into school late yesterday - my fault - my alarm - slap my hands and sent me to the bad mothers corner. however should i send a letter in saying this - my son will get detention

so imagine the children who cannot get on a bus becuase its full or cannot get on a train becuase it was cancelled ( or some daft git doesnt fix it properly) then detention all round for our kids.

now we are fairly good as a family - half the time hubby takes them on bikes then cycles to work - and depending on our schedules, punctures, bad brakes, broken cycle helmet. sometimes i can take them and pick them up.

however should the bikes break and the children have to walk the 1.5 miles to school its the walk of hell
hell i tell you. they whinge, moan, shoes begin to hurt, bags get heavy, and lucky me - i never have to deal with this ( i am the only driver) hubby gets to school and then promptly takes his anger out on those around him at work i imagine.

leave mothers alone Tony blurrrrr.

were all lazy - make a comprehensive policy instead of picking on us you fart.

i loved the guardian article and the inference that if the child mortality rate goes up due to children walking an cycling to school at least Tony burp will get the class sizes down.
that actually makes more sense than alister darling waking up one morning and coming up with an idea obviously not thought through.

why not pick on other sections of the community - seperate them out divide and conquer you tory in disguise Mr. fairy blairy hmmmm let me think of a more vulnerable section of our society....... oh erm disabled pensioners who clog up traffic in their little motability scooters - they should only go to the shops between 11and 2pm - ohh i just thought of that alister......make it so.

hang on a minute everyone!

Perhaps I listened to a different news bulletin last night, but my impression of the story was that the govt is concerned that not enough kids are walking or cycling to school, and therefore they don't get enough exercise.

And that seems fair enough to me. Blaming mums for congestion would be silly as it is patently caused by everyone, but on the other hand congestion would be reduced if one group in particular were to cut down substantially on car use...

On another note, I think that congestion in general can only really be reduced with radical measures. Lets all campaign for massive tax-breaks for home-workers; taxes on company mileage allowances (obviously with some exceptions); extra subsidies to students who chosose to study in their home town (think of the number of students who end up living in their university town and the subsequent car journeys home. It does add up). And probably some more things too.

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Which is what I was saying, Lucy123.

I mean it's so blinkin' OBVIOUS that the secret to reducing obesity and improving community health (cardiovascular) as well as air quality is to get people out of their cars & cycling/walking instead. It's bloomin' obvious that the obesity epidemic in Anglo-Saxon countries has relatively little to do with diet or genes & everything to do with car-culture. That a major increase in mortality will occur in places like China with the increase in car usage and decrease of bike usage. In the west the leading cause of death for people aged 1-35 years old is from road vehicles. But ...

Most people obviously don't care.

I am guilty of having chosen a school which meant walking was not so practical. Every now and then I decide I must try to walk it - like tigermoth it's probably about 30 mins (1 1/2 miles, one steepish hill) - but with 4 children (ages 7 down to 2) it just seems like too much hard work. For the 4 year old it would be 3 miles or I have to take the double buggy. Not surprisingly houses in the area of the school are vastly overpriced and it's not therefore an option to move closer.

It would be much easier for many workers to walk or use public transport than for school run mums, especially those with younger children. As for exercise - well I would have more sympathy with that argument if the government hadn't systematically eroded the provision of PE in schools.

I would say the obesity epidemic is a result of three things :

1. television
2. junk food
3. cars.

I would say the obesity epidemic is a result of three things :

1. television and computers
2. junk food
3. cars.

oops!

Sorry Zebra - missed your post there!

You are right - once we make the car a less friendly option, people will change their lives to reflect that. The only problem is that some people's lives will be hard in the meantime. I'm obviously not talking about those mums who have to walk half a mile to nursery though - the poor loves!

At the moment walking anywhere is quite hard. I much prefer to walk but it can be really difficult. Our local park is about half a mile and so obviously I walk, but the road crossing is so dangerous. There's a really busy road you have to cross with a blind spot iyswim. There's a pelican crossing the other side and it would be really easy to link this in with the didgy junction- but no. This is yards away from a school as well. It's also a residential area (so surely people must want to walk)

Bill Bryson always goes on about how it is impossible to walk anywhere in the States. Hope it doesn't get like that here.

walking everywhere here is hard too. i'm on a new devolpemnt with nothing here (yet) and to get out the building site with a buggy and a 3year old wreaks havoc on my nerves. its safer atm to take the car, but again the nearest shops are about 2 miles away.

Today's pace of life is so fast - that's why we experience the time pressure that makes us use the car instead of walking to save a few precious minutes.
The country is set up to encourage 2 working parents with a long hours culture to boot...we need to address this problem first.
When there is less pressure and more time, more of us will walk. After all, wouldn't most of us prefer to walk if we had the time?
We could look to Europe and adopt their shorter working days as a first step.

Unfortunately, you can't legislate against laziness (which most of us are guilty of at some time). While there are valid reason for driving the kids to school (distance, heavy bags, children too young to walk, etc), a lot of people who could walk easily don't. We will become like America where hardly anyone walks anywhere.

Some mums who could walk to school in ten minutes look out of the window, see that it's raining and decide to take the car. SO GET AN UMBRELLA AND PUT WELLIES ON THE KIDS. Others living five minutes' walk from the school use the car because they have to take a toddler with them. SO USE A BUGGY.

But of course, it's not just mums. It's people who drive to a shop then move their car 100 yards to visit the next shop! Or drive 5 minutes to get some exercise at the gym which they could have got by walking.

My dad always says that eventually kids will lose the ability to walk because they've been driven everywhere from birth.

I got soaked today walking ds1 to school in a monsoon. Unfortunately I have to as I do not own a car. However in some ways I am glad of this, as I know today if I had had access to a car I would have been tempted to use it. But the parking situation outside school is appalling and dangerous. A few months ago I witnessed a friend's son narrowly escape being knocked down as he crossed with the lolly-pop lady. The car driver was a mum driving her kid to school - so she must have known the crossing patrol was there, but just swung round the corner completely oblivious. Everyday I see mums who live closer to school than me using their cars. And no, the majority of them are not then going on to work.

However - I can also see why some of you car drivers are up-in-arms about being unfairly targeted. And I find quite horrifying the suggestion that kids should cycle to school. I really don't think this is safe in today's world. When I was a teenager two friends lost their fathers in traffic accidents where they were cycling to work. I'd never let dh do so. He drives the 20 minute drive to his work because he doesn't really have an alternative. It would be two buses and a 10 minute walk (total journey time well over an hour) otherwise.

I'm glad ds walks to school. I know he's getting some exercise and we're not contributing to the chronic congestion outside school. I also think some parents are terribly lazy and thoughtless. I can also see that for a lot of you the choice isn't that simple and you feel got-at by this sort of campaign. But you must also see that there is a lot of unneccessary car use and a lot of this is made up by the school run.

RE my last message: just realised I got my statistics muddled up: the death rate of boys (age 10/11) killed in road accidents is apparently HALF that of year 7 boys (age 11/12). The older ones travel to secondary school alone, walking, using public transport, hence the increased risks.

When we lived in Australia, we didn't own a car. DD was 4yo and we chose our accommodation based on closeness to transport. DH could easily catch a train to the city centre and we could also manage on local shops, supermarket and local shop deliveries and daily shopping for what we wanted to eat.

DD's school/kindergarten was a 10 min walk away (slightly longer than here). If we rang for a taxi, it was an automated system and one turned up within ten minutes. Where we live now, the buses are fairly good, the train station is about a 20 min walk away, we walk to school but the delivery systems of local shops and those in town could not cope with our demands.

Also in Australia, companies coming to deliver e.g. furniture rental, TV service, plumbers, etc would ring about 30 mins before they were going to arrive, negating the need to wait in all day. This made it easier to plan. If you were in town when they called, you'd just let them know that and they'd work around it.

I know from dealing with service people here in the UK that they can be just as accommodating but company policy isn't!

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