Share your stories of disastrous school runs in the car with Direct Line - £300 voucher prize draw!NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

Direct Line have asked us to find out Mumsnetters’ stories from the school run.

Here’s what they say: “We recently found a fifth of drivers didn’t know if their motor insurance policy entitled them to a hire or courtesy car following an accident or theft. Yet 77 per cent said one was either critical or important to them.”

We know that the school run can be a pretty stressful part of the day and with this in mind, we’d like you to share your most horrific or funny stories from your school run with your family. What kinds of things have happened to you whilst on the school run? Maybe you’ve been in an accident on the way to school? What happened and how did you continue your journey? Or you might have driven off with your handbag on the roof, perhaps you've even forgotten to bring a child home?! Whatever your stories are we’d love to hear them!

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 Love2Shop voucher!

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

I was driving my daughter to her friends house & my son to nursery before going to uni. I parked over the drive (which I never did), she jumped out & managed to lock her brother in the car with the engine running. My friend's husband had to take the kids to school. My son couldn't open his seatbelt as we'd swapped car seats over that weekend. Everyone told me to break a window but there wasn't one that could be broken without glass covering ds. My husband came from work (after me calling and leaving a garbled message omitting the fairly crucial info about where we actually were) & was adamant that he didn't have a spare key (as it turned out, he was wrong) and could not find it at home. Eventually I found out that the RAC can fix it. He came out an hour & a half after it happened & unlocked the door in about 2 mins. Very traumatic but we all carried on with our day. Eventually.

I got a call from DS's teacher to ask if I was coming to pick him up. I said "Yes, of course, but it's not time yet". Somehow I had looked at my watch, repeatedly, and got the hour wrong. So I left in a rush to pick him up. It's only an 8 minute journey usually, but that had to be the day that I was in a long tail-back behind a slow-moving learner driver. The learner stop at a red light at a camera-trigger junction (the camera-trigger part is important), then stalled when the light went green. The light went red again because there was no movement to keep it triggered to green. Because there was a tail-back of about 15 cars, there was no further movement to trigger the light to go green again. So we all sat there, for AGES. Eventually the learner driver's instructor told her to move off when there was no traffic at all on the main road. Once we all shuffled forward a bit the camera was triggered and our light went green. My usual 8 minute journey ended up being over 30 minutes. DS's teacher was lovely about it, DS was pretty miffed though and kept bringing it up for about a month afterwards.

My mums favourite story is when I was a toddler she'd just dropped my older sister at school and was strapping me back into my car seat on the far side when the door closed shutting her wrap around dress in the door. Child locks on the windows and doors meant there was nothing for it but to take her dress off, crawl into the front seat and get out in just her underwear, open the back door and replace her dress whilst the other school traffic gawped from across the road

During marathon training I dropped ds at school and had somehow driven all the way with my pre run banana and nakd bar on the roof!! It was still there when I got there luckily! Ds scowled at me and said people were looking

My son had told me that he had a bad tummy. I thought he was trying it on as it was just after the holidays and he has form for it, so we got ready as usual. He was sick everywhere - even on my other son who was next to him.
The small lingered in the car for so long.

I also stunk of sick all day at work even though I practically washed and dried my clothes there. I wish I'd volunteered to stay at home with him.

My neighbour's children had an all out fight in the car (one in the front and one in the back to attempt to prevent such an occurrence as I did know they were a bit volatile!). They drew blood and everything. And we are talking young (5 or 6 at the time), one boy one girl. When I attempted to calm things down, I simply got "YOU AREN'T MY MUM, YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO" from the little girl in the back.

Needless to say, our lift share arrangement came to an end soon after as my children were horrified and quite upset by it and I was flaming livid!

We had taken some food over to my parents for a family BBQ one Friday, but when unpacking I'd completely forgotten to take out a tray of basted spare ribs, hiding behind a shopping bag in the boot. Didn't use the car at all over half term, then on Monday we got in for the school run and the awful smell reminded me where I'd left them. We could just about put up with it for the school run, but I had to disinfect the boot thoroughly when I got home.

One evening I was picking ds up from nursery. He didn't want to leave his friends and had a complete and utter tantrum about getting in the car. It took me 45 minutes of standing in the carpark to get him in the seat before we could leave

Nothing as yet other than the usual carseat aversion (stiff board impression) form DD3. We do walk mostly but watch this space as I may need to drive more often due to new job.

I had just got a new car - one of those fandangled ones where you press a button rather than put the key in the ignition. I had the dog in the car and picked up DD. I got home and could not find my car keys anywhere. Freaking out I was convinced is dropped them at nursery - grabbed the spare and rushed back up, scouring the car park and going back into nursery. No sign - arrived home in tears, convinced someone had picked them up and would steal my lovely car when I next went to nursery (drama queen alert!).

DH greeted me, asked my to track what I had done when I got home - lo and behold they were with the dog's lead and harness

I can remember one school run on a winter's morning when my children were in primary school I set off down the hill towards the main road and applied my brakes. Unfortunately it was very icy and the brakes did not work so we slid down the hill and straight onto the main road......Luckily the traffic was going slow enough to stop but it was a heart-stopping moment!

The weather was awful - it was cold, snow had fallen - and because DD had been ill a few days before I decided to drive to the school to pick them up. It would only take a few minutes and no major roads were involved so I reckoned it would be OK. I got DS and DD and we set off home. The roads were icy so as I approached the right turn into our street I very, very gently braked to go even slower than I already was going. I sailed straight past our street in a perfectly straight, controlled skid. DS immediately said, "Oh, Mummy, do it again!". We walked until the weather improved.

Ooh, I tried to do the school run in the snow when I lived at the bottom of a steep hill. We made it half way and had to stop because the car ahead went into a skid. As soon as we stopped I knew that was it, we had lost momentum. I made a very well executed three point turn, parked the car as the way further down was now blocked, and walked my children back home. The snow day was a lot of fun!

We live at the top of a steep hill with DD's school half way down - our most memorable school run was on one snowy winter morning when DD travelled on her sled and DH took his snowboard!

I was driving my son to school. He doesn't like school because of the sensory overload and getting to his school is a 35 mile round trip. Anyway, I put his uniform on and he said "no school", uniform equals school you see, so he hated it. I managed to get him in the car. He settled down as soon as a started driving. 'Fabulous' I thought. 'Today will be easy'

So I was merrily driving along with my quiet child in the back seat, I peeked in my rear view mirror to see my first born, love of my life, sitting in his car seat, seatbelt on, happily looking out of the window..... Completely naked!!!

He clearly thought if he removed his uniform it would mean no school. Can't fault his logic, except there I was, driving up a busy road with nowhere to pull over, with a naked child in the back seat.

I panicked wondering what I could do, and worrying that someone would see him and call the police because there was some neglectful mother driving down the road who couldn't even be bothered dressing her child in the middle of winter.

Anyway luckily I have hands free built into the car, so I managed to call school and explain my predicament. I ended up having to pull right up to the schools entrance where DSs TA was there with a massive sheet which she ran to the car with, wrapped him up in and carried him in as I searched for where he had stashed his clothes!

Gave us all a good laugh that day anyway.

Not disastrous but memorable! My 5yo was in the back with his 6yo brother. He piped up "So mummy, you've had sex two times". This was not good for my driving.

My scariest was totally losing control on black ice and very nearly ending up in a rhyne (Somerset for deep, water, filled ditch). It really knocked my confidence although I managed to keep it together enough to avoid scaring the kids.

My funniest must have been on the school run, listening to Beyonce's If I Were a Boy. Cue DD (age 5 at the time) singing at full pelt: If I were a boy, I would have a penis! At least she was correct.

Most memorable school run was breakdowns get on the way with two children (5 and 2) in the back on a day of torrential rain, standing on the side of the dual carriageway. The RAC man was amazing, we sat in the back of the lorry with heater blasting with radio on singing gangam style while he loaded the car on the back which dc loved :)

collecting my children from school,a young girl who lives nearby hopped in as well and as dp was driving away she put her hand on my shoulder shed coloured her hand in with a luminous green marker -i let out a shriek,dp nearly crashed....a little further up the rd at a busy junction ds was showing me his work and I said (innocently) looks ok to me ,Dp took this to suggest i was saying the road was clear from my side (which it wasnt) hence another near crash.......dp was not impressed......still on the same journey we rounded the corner approaching a steep hill and........the car packed up!!! we sat there debating -arguing-,ds2 did the smelliest fart ever.
its snowing its cold we have 2 of our own dc in the car and a teenager who is not ours,we are miles away from home (20 min walk in honesty) the car stinks weve had 2 near fatal dramatic crashes and now we are doomed.
child in car suddenly remembers her step father is a mechanic-she rings him,hes just around the corner!! he comes hes our mecchanic too we realise and he drives us home and sorts the car out!!

When I was a nanny I could cope with getting two kids into the car but didn't always remember to put the bag, buggy or so on in too.

My camera made a good noise falling off the top of the car as I drove down the street

One of the mums on the PTA was to help me with the Christmas stall.

She arrived late and flustered. She'd come out of the house and her car wasn't there. Reported to the police and rushed to school. I asked if she had used it that morning and she said "I dropped of at school, then drove to such and such and got the bus into town!" Then it dawned on her, she'd got a bus right home and bypassed the car. She didn't live it down for months!

I don't drive to school as it's only a 5 mins walk but one day I did drive as it was pouring with rain and I didn't want my son to get soaked & have to spend the day in wet clothes. Unfortunately, everyone else decided to drive too & the car park was full! I ended up parking down the road from the school and walking up which took longer than if I had just walked from home & my son was soaked! Never again

We had a flat battery after school ... I mean, what shape is it supposed to be? My usual garage refused to come out, and told me to register with the A.A., who would get me started, or take me to their garage. So I had to wait in the car, thankfully prettily parked against the kerb, but with the window open. I'm sure I would have remembered if it had been raining! So, I had to pay for a year's annual subscription to the A.A., who did get me started, but I certainly went to a different garage to have the battery changed.

One of mine said they felt sick, so I threw a carrier bag into the back - which indeed they were sick into - then after I stopped I realised that it was a cheap supermarket one - with holes in it - yuck!

The worst was when I somehow managed to get forced into a super sharp curb on a busy junction, completed ripped my tyre, pulled over and onto the pavement. It was raining, I had my new born daughter in the car as well as my school aged son. It was pouring down with rain, no pushchair, no phone! The police pulled over, not to help a damsel in distress but to tell me I was causing an obstruction!! Walked a mile to a local college to borrow their phone with a screaming baby and moaning child in tow. Finally managed to get assistance and vowed never to drive again!