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MNHQ

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

161 replies

MichelleMumsnet · 25/09/2015 14:54

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

OP posts:
ArcheryAnnie · 29/09/2015 12:04

I had a dad doing the school run, illegally parked on the crossing outside the school, deliberately try and reverse into me and the two small children with me, when I politely asked him if he could park somewhere safer in future.

Not very amusing but certainly has stuck in my memory. Too many parents think that the laws and courtesies surrounding drop-offs near schools don't apply to them.

jandoc · 29/09/2015 12:48

I told my neighbour I would take her grandkids to school and then went back home and fuffed about it so my DS decided to tell them all about it on the way to school

janeoho · 29/09/2015 13:31

I had three places to drop off between 9 and 9:20. First stop was the school to drop off my 6 year old daughter. We were in the car and half way there and POP! The tyre burst, a huge nail gave me a flat tyre and we were stranded. We couldn't get anyone to come and get us till 11am! Little one missed a few hours of school and I missed the other 2 places I had to get to! Poor wee one sat like a little angel in the car for a few hours and played on my phone.

Lulabellx1 · 29/09/2015 14:16

Dog poo...
bird poo...
and a seagull stealing my parcel (it was wrapped in brown wrapping paper and must have looked like bread).

This was all in one morning... argh!

devito92 · 29/09/2015 16:25

I came back to my car and found that someone had bumped into it while I was picking up my son. No note left so I was unable to collar the culprit

sharond101 · 29/09/2015 17:40

baby sick in car, over me, her, car seat and her older brother's schoolbag with his project for the week, taking care of the school teddybear mascot which had been promised to another child to take home that day

Indantherene · 29/09/2015 18:51

-Getting home with DC in the car to realise one was missing - and the others didn't say a word. Where's DC2? At school, you left him behind.
-Driving into DC3's school and out the other side without stopping to let him out
-DH sleeping in a layby having dropped all DC woken up by police and accused of being the Urban Burglar.
-Crashed into by an overtaking/speeding driver. Car span round then went through a hedge and flew into a field. Made to leave the car there for recovery and somebody stole all the DC's coats.

But the best by far. 2 DC at primary in town A, 2 DC at school in town C, one primary, one secondary. I had one of those all-day assessment interviews at Canary Wharf, 2 hours away. This was pre mobiles. Came out of the interviews at 4.30ish and was chatting to DH (who'd driven me) about his dad having picked up the DC.

Face drains of colour. FIL had been asked to pick up 2 in town A, but not 2 in town C. Schools finished at 3.40 and 4pm. Found a phone, called FIL to dash across (40 min journey) for others and have to call both schools to grovel apologise for confusion. FIL then gets lost on way to school, gets stuck in the mud down a country lane he should not have been down and takes an hour to get there, much to the amusement of DC4 who at 6 y old has a better grasp of geography than the rest of us. DC3 has had tea and is about to be sent to bed. DC1 is happily with boarders and doesn't really want to go home.

Made DH go into both schools on the Monday to apologise. They were not best pleased. Neither was FIL. Didn't ever do that again. (and I didn't get the job).

School run with DC5 positively tame in comparison.

DinosaursRoar · 29/09/2015 19:27

well there was the time I was in the back of the car doing up the youngest's car seat straps, pulled the car door shut with me inside because there was people driving very close, then remembered the child locks on the car doors at the back, so had to clamber into the front to drive off. Not too bad, but was wearing a particularly short skirt and realised as I did my seat belt up, it was up round my waist and yes, I had flashed my knickers at half the class parents...

This is one of the many reasons we only drive on the school run once in a blue moon (the main one being lack of parking round the school and the crazy traffic on the way - leading to the family next door having to set off in the car earlier than us walking in order to get there on time, I'm not quite sure why they don't walk.)

Princessxo · 29/09/2015 21:04

Omg, it's funny as a couple of months before the last school year ended, an Iceland van was parked close to a road that we cross to get to school. Just as me and DS1 were behind the van, the van started moving then and as DS1 was closest to the van, well as you can imagine I was absolutely fuming. And to make matters worse, as soon as we crossed the van just speeded off and this was an Iceland van where I'm a regular customer at. Needless to say I sent a complaint off and haven't shopped there since.

Hopezibah · 29/09/2015 21:21

having to do the school run in snow and getting stuck! I had to have my car pushed up the hill by other mums - it was dreadful and put me off driving in bad weather.

The following day to reduce the amount of driving i had to do, I dropped the kids to school, then waited outside til school ended so i wouldn't have to keep driving to and fro in the snow.

Maiyakat · 29/09/2015 21:55

'I need a wee' from DD (3) just as we pulled away from school - sadly didn't hold it until home.... Always make her go before we leave now! Also lost a shoe climbing into the car.

del2929 · 29/09/2015 22:53

iv gone and waited 20mins for my daughter outside school... only for my childs teacher to come out and tell me shes at some after school club... (cue embarassed mum face)

imrankhanpost · 30/09/2015 07:41

One evening a young person got stabbed. I heard about it. It was right outside the school gates. In the morning dropping children to school was a mare because every child was asking why police cordoned off area near the gates. All parents had to make up a story.

TheWildRumpyPumpus · 30/09/2015 11:13

Our old commute used to be timed just at the wrong moment, such that at the time I had to take a right turn from my road I had the full morning sun streaming creating over a hill through my windscreen.

One morning I had been in a real rush to get DS2 to nursery before school drop off and hadn't totally de-steamed and defrosted everywhere, meaning there was an extra bit of glare - BASH - moving at barely 5 miles an hour we had a collision with an oncoming car that I just didn't see in the brightness.

Car was a write-off unbelievably considering how slowly we were going.

CheeseEMouse · 30/09/2015 16:21

Probably my daughter deciding that planking in the buggy on the nursery run was a particularly good idea, rendering the buggy cover impossible to get on. And it was pouring with rain. We were both drowned rats after that one.

Wjjkl · 30/09/2015 20:18

DS has developed a good line in planking then half somersaulting out of his car seat into the seat in the opposite side of the car when he doesn't want to be strapped in. Achieved this feat for the first time in the nursery car park - cue me running around the car to retrieve him and try again. To his great hilarity, he did this 4 times in a row with the nursery manager watching and laughing too..

ahbollocks · 30/09/2015 21:35

My cat snuck into the boot of the car while I was getting dd strapped in.
As we were getting out he shout out of the parcel shelf and shot up the closest tree!
I decided to run dd into nursery then worry about the cat. After the quickest drop off ever I spent 25 flipping minutes pleading with the cat to climb back down, all the while he was miaowing louder and louder.
He eventually threw caution to the wind and jumped directly onto the top of my head and I man handled him back to the car.

He hasn't tried to sneak into the car since ;)

BrandNewAndImproved · 30/09/2015 22:00

I bumped into someone when parking. The school runs a bloody nightmare with everyone squeezing in spaces on roads that are to narrow.

Cars regularly drive over the pavements and no one gives a shit about right of way

ThomasRichard · 30/09/2015 22:16

I was collecting my son from nursery for the first time since the birth of my daughter. Struggling to get DD's car seat in the car, I eventually managed it and... slammed DS' fingers in the door. I bundled him into the car and sped off to A&E, where I couldn't find a parking space for ages. Then I couldn't get the pram to recline so I put DS in the pram without strapping him in and carried DD. Hot-footing it round to A&E I bumped the pram down a kerb and DS fell out. I was so busy rushing that I didn't notice for a second until I fell over him. Then I wasn't allowed to take DD into the x-ray room so I had to leave her in the corridor with two random old ladies while DS had his hand x-rayed. DH arrived, having been pulled out of his first day back at work after paternity leave, to find his newborn daughter being passed around the various patients in the A&E department, his wife semi-hysterical and his son with squashed (but not broken) fingers.

It was definitely the worst school run ever.

castleton · 30/09/2015 23:06

Because I was very late I once went in the car to pick up the children from school, which was most unusual as we usually walked. I collected both children and then walked home. Next day when I got up and looked out of the window and panicked, I thought my car had been stolen. My daughter gave me a very strange look and told me that I had left it at school.

GetKnitted · 30/09/2015 23:28

The day when ben 10 refused to go to world book day and we walked home to turn him into a pirate. Thirty minutes late. We lived 1 minute away from school.

Footle · 01/10/2015 06:26

Not my story but an old lady told me this last week. She brought up
her children at her farm on the fell, two miles above the village. On her eldest child's first day of school , when he was nearly 5, she walked down with him. As she left him he looked up and said "Don't bother coming back for me, Mam - I know me way home". That was the last school run she did, because as the other children grew up, they went together.
Hard to imagine now, but still happening in many parts of the world.

Cambam2010 · 01/10/2015 10:36

I've only been doing the school run for little over a year so nothing disastrous has happened yet... I'm a bit of a planner so I leave earlier than needs be as the parking is atrocious and can have a knock on effect on me getting to work.

Lorn26 · 01/10/2015 17:52

After I'd dropped my 2 older DS' at school, I put the baby in the car seat and reversed out of my parking space. I didn't realise I had left the pram behind the car and reversed straight into it!! People came running over panicking as they thought my DS was still in the pram!

sofieellis · 01/10/2015 19:23

I don't drive, so I always walk to school for the school run. I am amazed at how many parents arrive outside the school over an hour early just to get a parking space near the school gates. It amazes me even more that most of these parents live about a 2 or 3 minute drive away from the school (one lives less than a 1 minute walk away!). What a waste of an hour every day! Not to mention how much more dangerous it makes the street for children who are walking home. It makes me so cross Angry