Are zig-zag lines outside schools enforcable?

[OrangeMoon]

Dd's entrance to her primary school is on a very tight corner of the road in a residential estate, there are of course zig-zag lines outside the school entrance, however everyone parks on them, we have to walk all the way up the road just to be able to cross the road safely. A few of the teachers leave at the same time as school finishes and they never say anything to the parents parked on them, so i am just wondering if they are there just as a precautionary measure??

In Scotland they are enforceable. Was law a few months ago and now the wardens are doing the rounds and issuing fixed penalty notices if there is a 'no parking/stopping between.......' sign also present.

yes they are enforcable, but by traffic wardens/police not teachers.

Joe Public is entitled to enforce the law if the police aren't available.

Yes, the law stands. It is illegal to park on them. You can approach any of them and ask them to move. And I think you should. It makes my blood boil .. and it seems to be on the increase, wouldn't you say?

School can do their bit to publicise it though by mentioning it in newsletters.

Our Headteacher likes to prowl and pounce on them but she doesn't really need to do that as people shouldn't be so fucking selfish and waste her time - let alone the safety aspect.

Quite right, Eric. It only needs a little public will, surely?

We've a classic in our village. Church House ... used for ballet classes and stuff like that.

At great public expense, the village parish built an enormous car park at the back of the building. It requires a thirty yard walk up a hill to get to the building.

Does anyone park there? Nope. They park on the main road, creating a dangerous bottle-neck. I want to wring their necks, I honestly do.

Its in the highway code. Its illegal.

www.highwaycode.gov.uk/18.htm

167: You MUST NOT park on a crossing or in the area covered by the zig-zag lines. You MUST NOT overtake the moving vehicle nearest the crossing or the vehicle nearest the crossing which has stopped to give way to pedestrians.
Laws ZPPPCRGD regs 18, 20 & 24, RTRA sect 25(5) & TSRGD reg 10, 27 & 28

Suggest you ask headteacher to mention this in a newsletter.

Or...there should be a road safety committee for your area. Haven't a clue how you get in touch with it ...prob via the police, bet they have to liaise with them. Should be right up their street (sorry, its late).

Design a polite note emphasising importance of child safety over antisocial adult behaviour, that NOBODY is so special they can park on these lines, good example to children etc.
Print lots of them on bright pink paper and get like-minded mums and staff to stick them under wiperblades of offenders.

We have spot checks by the police outside our school and anyone parked dangerously where they shouldn't be gets a ticket. Works a treat.

Spell it out to the lazy wotsits that should an ambulance be needed at the school for THEIR child would they want it delayed bc some lazy-arse couldn't be botherd to walk 100 yards............oooh don't get me started it's a BIG prooblem outside every school I've known!

The zigzag lines outside our village school are rarely parked on. Its right opposite the police house and quite often there will be a bobby lurking helpfully.

Unfortunately... instead there is line of queuing traffic because the rest of the road has out-of-village parents parked all down it and theres not room for two cars to pass.
Its a 20mph school zone which is a good thing but that makes it even more of a bottleneck. And a lollipop man which again is a good thing but doesn't exactly ease the flow.

Sigh...no easy solution to school gate time.

We've just started a walking bus as we have a long narrow road past oour school & all the parenst park right outside & all down the road it's a nightmare (and the PARKING is abysmal!!!)

Luckily the ,local publican has allowed us to start form his car park down the road. For the first two journeys we had 12 children from the pub (the official bus)which is the bottom end of the village, then 9 of us frorm the top end of theh village who are dooign an informal one with all our junior-age kids. That's about 10 less cars plus the kids get a bit of excercise. We're hoping it'll will get more popular as the kids talk to each other. Trouble is with the bad weather coming it might drop off We'll see! The added bonus is parents can drop off at 8.30 for the bus to leave at 8.40 so some early starters like it if they're flying off to work.

Orange, could you get your PTA to look into something like it for your school?

S'cuset the dsylexic fingers!!

We do have a walking bus at our school, but because no-one really wanted to go to this school, all the other local schools were oversubscribed meaning most of us parents have to come from quite a long way away and with the bad weather we have been having no-one wants to walk.

Spoke to the head teacher and she wasn't the least bit interested, gggrrr it makes me so mad, i have seen at least 4 children have to run back to the kerb whilst trying to cross the road because you cannot see other cars coming.
Will probably go to my local police station and see if they can help in any way.

Yup. police. Ideal job for a community officer. Do it.

Orange we have much the same set-up at our school.It's a small village school but very popular so many drive here. That's what we're trying to encourage is parking further away from school & walking together from a given point. The head has started a points system to encourage it, 5 points for walking, 4 for cycling, 3 for car-shares. 1 for single car drop-off. The children with the most points at the end of the month get a certificate. The idea is to encourage greener travelling, plus excercise the kids AND reduce the cars near school.

(it remains to be seen whether it works but it's worth a try!!!)