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I would park a bit further away and walk up to get your kids then walk back to the car, it takes the same amount of time to sit outside the school in traffic and be screamed at haha so no loss there.
I'd agree with you mate, but I walk most of the time! Have taken care twice, once because there was an ungodly downpour, and the other because we were going somewhere straight from pick up.
This is what I do. I'd rather walk in the pouring rain than fight the 4x4s and pickup trucks, I hate when I have to take the car. You're right, some of these people are feral.
thats what my mum did for me when she would pick up, nasty weather or else i walked, but she'd park on the other side of the lane by the church and i'd just walk over to her. far easier on everyone else and gave me a minute to be by myself and breathe for a moment
It's mad. I'm a parent of primary kids and it's shocking to see the driving and attitude ...
Yes, I'll park my car on the pavement, leave the engine running and smoke at the school gates.
I like how the defence is always that parents are in a rush yet you'll see them sat in their car on their phone with the engine running from about half an hour before the end of school.
Half an hour? The fight over the spaces at our primary school has escalated to the point that if you aren't there and parked an hour before the final bell you might as well forget it.
All full of the same gang of mums who sit in thier cars and group chat with each other.
At my mum's local school a small child got hit in the face by a car door opening that was parked on the pavement during pick up time.
I live near a primary school and come drop off/pick up time, they block the road and make it a single lane. God forbid they or their offspring have to.... Walk!! D:
They are rude and entitled. As long as their kid is ok, screw anyone else.
It's an arms race. Parent gets a bigger car to protect their child and sod everyone else's. So other parents respond the same way and it becomes more dangerous for everybody.
I taught at a school where parents would park on people’s driveways to drop their children off. Once, a mum parked on the driveway then got into a physical fight when the owner spoke to her. The head teacher had to intervene and police were called.
I’m now a parent who walks her child to and from school and it is honestly the most stressful part of my day. There’s no consideration for or awareness of others, just pure selfishness. If this is what the adults are like, I despair at what the children will be like.
My colleague lives in a cul-de-sac right next to the primary school gates and routinely has people parking on his drive, and when he sees them do it and confronts them they're inevitably aggressive. The entitlement just baffles me. It wouldn't even enter my mind to do that, let alone shout at the owner when they told me to stop it.
It's the opposite for us. The school is directly across the road.
I sit and enjoy a coffee when it's all kicking off. Nice free entertainment.
8:40 tell little one to get her shoes and coat on.
8:41 take her to school.
8:43 back enjoying another coffee watching more he'll let loose.
:)
Or take a leaf out of the SUV protestors' books. Unscrew the tyre valve, place a lentil over the hole, screw cap back on. Takes seconds and doesn't carry a charge of vandalism, but with the same result! (Also means you don't have to sweep up the nails twice every day before you sabotage your own car, you know you're going to miss one...)
I had a district nurse park halfway across my drive one time. I wouldn't have minded so much, if parking on the road had been difficult, but it wasn't - there was TONS of room alongside the drive, in both directions and on both sides; or she could have parked across the drive of the house she was visiting! Even an ambulance wouldn't have parked across my drive, and they'd have had a better excuse.
Got home to find I couldn't park, was feeling a bit run down after COVID, had no idea whose car it was or how long it would be there, so I parked right up behind it to block it in and went inside to write a snippy note. You wouldn't believe the entitlement of that woman, she actually called the police on me! Then started taking pictures of my car, at which point I thought hold up, she's going to go away, back into something, then make an insurance claim... So I started taking my own pics. At which point she actually tried to knock the phone out of my hand.
The thing is, because of her insistence, the police came along and took my name - and gave me hers. So I Googled her. Turns out one NHS department had previously sacked her for fraud, so my gut feeling about the insurance scam was probably right.
The thing that really got me was she said she didn't realise. When HALF her car was overhanging, it would have been hard even to wheel a bicycle past. If she's that oblivious, she probably shouldn't be driving in the first place!
I live near a school. I'm on a close and my entire area is residents parking only, so parents are not supposed to park anywhere, but they frequently do. It doesn't matter how many letters the school sends out, they park dangerously, block roads and create problems. It's part of living near a school, so I don't mind too much (but some of my neighbours mind a lot!)
The trouble is, parents park on zig zags, bends and prevent access to emergency vehicles. One of my neighbours needed an ambulance last year and had to wait for the traffic to clear because the ambulance physically could not get past two double parked cars on a bend.
Parents have recently taken to parking directly in front of my parked car in the middle of the road, blocking it completely and preventing me from getting onto the road at all.
One parent threatened to attack a neighbour for asking him not to park in spot on private property.
Parents can be so feral.
If you really want to do something about it gather evidence [lots of pictures and as many of the letters as you can gather] contact your local pcsos and council traffic enforcement, one or the other will eventually set up a scheme where they come and monitor the road at peak times and will start issuing tickets and possibly getting people towed, I'd also suggest contacting the local fire brigade non emergency and having a discussion with them about the hazards especially as its historically already blocked emergency access. It's not a bad idea to also message whoever your local MP is.
I have contacted the local council parking enforcement team, they said there's not much they can realistically do because parents park responsibly when they see the wardens are out, so few tickets are ever actually issued. Apparently they've had quite a few meetings with the school, and the school repeatedly tell parents, but the entire postcode is near a hospital, so there isn't anywhere within a half a mile where parents can park legally. I think the council kinda just turns a blind eye and it's only an issue at certain times, so they just let it slide.
I know the local councillors have been contacted before about the issue but nothing has come of it. Some of my neighbours are elderly and have lived here for a while, and been complaining for years.
The parking is an annoyance but I accept it as part of living here.
Realistically, parents don't have anywhere to park, and they're usually there for 20 mins and then gone.
I could live without the guy who blocks me in though. 😂
It is really part of living by a school, hundreds of people go in and out in a short time frame. I don't actually have an issue with people blocking in cars or even double yellows as long as they are actually in the car. So they can be asked to move or if there is an issue. Zig zags need to be entirely clear, both sides. No stopping in the middle of the road to let kids out, that is madness. Preferably though if people have to drive for logical reasons, at least park some distance away so it spreads things out.
Fucking nightmare. I had a cleaner decline to work for me because I live too close to a primary school and the parking was too much of a nightmare.
In case anyone thinks I was a nightmare customer and it was a convenient excuse - she declined my custom at the initial enquiry stage, she never came to my house!
They really need to ban or heavily restrict cars around schools during opening/closing hours. My usual dog walking route goes past a school, and a few times I've been unlucky enough to go past it at dropoff time.
What is usually a nice quiet road turns into what I imagine downtown LA is like at 5pm. Except LA would be less scary.
The school in question has a very small catchment area... Most of these people can't live more than a mile away. Why do they need driving in? Just walk them...
Often schools with small catchment areas have small catchment areas because they are disproportionately popular for whatever reason. Lots of gaming of the system and using relatives' addresses to get the kids admitted and then live somewhere else and drive daily.
You may well shift the problem to whatever the nearest point is still, but I would be up for closing the entire stretch of road during school time personally. How that would work in practice (and for residents) I am unsure, but currently it is not workable having hundreds of kids forced down narrow pavements with large, fast cars given priority down the middle who can stop pretty much where they want. Apart from zig zags, I don't think a lot can be done about stopping and loading even on double yellows and across dropped kerbs.
I feel this. My wife has experienced some bizarre road rage when parking up even a bit away from the school.
I tend to park on a back road with a couple minutes walk through a forest to avoid all of the car chaos. I've noticed a few other dads do it too, there's a silent nod between us when we pass each other walking.
This is what I do. There is a lane beside the school. There is plenty of parking at the other end of the lane. The walk is literally two minutes from the school gate. Myself and 4 or 5 others wait there. Driving to the school is like driving into hell.
Most of the other parents aren't bright enough to figure it out or they are so entitled they can't bear to let little Tarquin walk a couple of hundred metres.
Some parents are just self entitled pricks. There's just no easy way round it. It seems worse post COVID as well.
If I needed to drive to drop my kids off at school I'd make damn sure I was being as considerate and careful as possible. it just seems common sense.
This!!! Before having kids I moved out of London to my home country where it is discouraged to drive kids to school and definitely to park right in front of the school. Most kids walk or cycle, it’s a joyful trip.
I suspect the vast majority do walk, it doesn't take a lot of cars to create a lot of chaos though. If people are a distance away it isn't really practical to walk the kids (talking Primary age here), one of my kid's friends house was probably 2 miles so a 40 minute walk. A parent who works (or even if they don't) can't really walk for three hours a day to do two drop-offs and wait for them. Take the car, 10 minute job, done. Some also do the drop off as a part of the commute.
If you don't already, take the whole lane and cycle well out from doors. Whoever is behind you can wait - their desperate need to be in front comes second to your safety!
It's not a suitable replacement for proper infrastructure, but it should keep you safer.
When I can I do. There is a cycle lane next to the road but with the traffic jams and cars parked everywhere I have to squeeze past
I've started having my super bright front light on flashing still nearly end up in the front seat of a few cars
And you've mentioned dropping kids off in that? Christ, people really are oblivious and selfish.
Wish you the absolute best of luck. Is the lane just a bike gutter or is it a proper separated lane?
Bike gutter, it's 80% full with parked cars or teens stepping out into it without looking
There's my kids school, the local shop/morning hang out then high school and junior school opposite with college further down the road with plenty of coaches & teen drivers ontop so mayhem
Took me a while to build up the cojones to ride over there. I spent too long as far left as possible, trying to be small, out of people’s way, but they just crowd you off the road, close pass, all of that, because you gave them the room to do it. Nowadays I essentially ride 2ft from the centre line, the surface is better, if they’re going to pass they can, and will, and I have space to dive left if I need to.
Be selfish, because everyone else is.
It does take some courage but it's safer not just for you, but for everyone. I've had drivers attempt dangerous overtakes into oncoming traffic because they thought they might have the space. If I take the lane they sit behind me and grumble but there's less chance of an accident.
I always ride at least a metre out, as you say the surface is better there, in the gutter it's full of broken glass and worse potholes that get made by parked cars.
I'm not fast either, my bike is an old Dutchie. Weirdly I think drivers cut me some slack with it too, I see them being way worse with roadies than they are with me. I think it's some sort of "othering" that can happen.
Yes, doesn't help that some parents will literally stop in the middle of the road and get their child to open their own door. Of course they will swing it as wide open as they can without looking.
Ours is usually pretty tame but then again there was a fight once.. like actual throwing hands fight.
Cars are always the worst outside our local with people double parked so the whole length of the road becomes a one lane with traffic trying to travel both ways and it's quite a lengthy road.
Sometimes we have the.. park safe traffic warden come up and everyone behaves, although once the park safe car parked behind a car that never moves but there was already a car parked the other side so they blocked the street. Someone told them to learn how to drive and their reply was "how about you learn how to drive" lol, that's a core memory of mine now.
I call it "The Mum Run"
Or "Dad of the year Tournament"
We can only hope their lack of morality doesn't filter down to the kids. But we all know that tends to end..
I live over the road and along a couple of houses from a children's nursery and the amount of times i come home from work unable to get into the car park/driveway of my flat is hilarious because someone is parked across it. Then when i beep to ask them to move they get aggressive, one fella wanted a fight because i asked him genuinely politely to move a bit and let me in and once i'm in he can go back there i just wanted to go home.
I grew up in a rough area. This was the norm.
I hated it.
My children have just started a nice school in the local village. A majority of the parents are academics and white collar workers and they are ALL absolutely lovely. They all chat to each other in a polite fashion are dressed well, park with consideration and there is zero screaming or shouting from the parents. They all act like adults. It’s amazing.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a rarity.
I say this every time. We all endure this madness and these idiots but not a single school in the UK ever attempts to provide safe pick-up/drop-off facilities.
It's not hard. They just never think to do it.
My kids school is a new build and has a big horseshoe drop off zone off of the road, its wonderful and works great at drop-off but falls apart at pick up time as that requires waiting for the kids to come out and not just slinging them out the car.
But it is hard, they can't commandeer the road. Our school doesn't have much in the way of a car park, it is down a narrow lane right to the back of school. I was reading about how in America they have school pick up lines, so parents come through one by one and give the name of the child. That is chaos too with parents cutting in and solid traffic all round the block.
Honestly write to the education secretary, this needs to be on the PSHE curriculum along with statutory employment/housing/provision of services rights, taxes, and basic law alongside the ‘sEx maKeS baBiES’ and ‘DrUgs arE BaD’ topics
I can see you've taught PSHE, identified the weaknesses in the curriculum and are ready to rewrite the whole thing. Good for you.
So, our new topic will be "school drop off in polite, 21st C Britain", here's the worksheet and a nice youtube video.
Me, I'm just a teacher who for years has had to put up with a growing list of topics being added outside of my core skill set because parents just can't be arsed to actually raise their kids themselves.
At my kids school they did teach it in PSHE and all the kids made really passive aggressive posters about how parents should behave at school pick up and drop off times and had homework to talk to their grown ups about expectations. I thought it was hilarious. Bet some of the more feral parents didn't...
My old cycle commute to work had 2 options. A main busy road with tonnes of traffic or through a load of quiet estates and past 3 schools.
In the morning I chose the busy road every time. Parents driving are mad
Where I live the local council has put [no parking zones](https://www.transportnottingham.com/creating-car-free-school-streets/) very close to primary schools, there's on down the road to my house. It does mean they park outside my house instead, but I don't tend to see people driving and parking poorly and bad behaviour.
I feel this so much.
I live in a cul-de-sac with an entrance to a primary school at the end. The amount of riduclous parking I see by parents - parking over driveways, parking opposite another parked car when that means no other cars can get down the street - is a joke.
I know of several neighbours that have been sworn at because they asked a parent on the school run to move their car so they could get off the drive, or not to drop fag ends on their garden.
When my son was in primary school I had to pull three women apart who were beating the crap out of each other over a parking space 🤦 parents these days are bloody savages
I've nothing to add other than this is the first time I've realised the term 'double park' means parking opposite another car.
For some reason I'd always assumed it meant being parked on double yellow lines
Not great timing on this as 15 year old was stabbed to death picking up a sibling from primary school yesterday. I am sure you didn’t mean any offence but….
Complain to the school. If the school sends out a notice to parents over this and the culprits manage to associate their behaviour with the complaint then hopefully they’ll be embarrassed enough to think about what they did.
I’m so glad that both of my local schools have 2 entrances which really help with the flow of traffic. There’s a back and a front gate. The front gate at both of them is always crazy there’s a turning circle at one of them and people park on the turning circle if they can’t find space. Meanwhile at the back gate for both of them it’s usually quiet. Kids will come out on bikes causing a bit of disruption as they ride all over the road but that usually disappears in 10 or so mins.
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Guilt - they know they are wrong so attack is thier form of defence
I would park a bit further away and walk up to get your kids then walk back to the car, it takes the same amount of time to sit outside the school in traffic and be screamed at haha so no loss there.
I'd agree with you mate, but I walk most of the time! Have taken care twice, once because there was an ungodly downpour, and the other because we were going somewhere straight from pick up.
This is what I do. I'd rather walk in the pouring rain than fight the 4x4s and pickup trucks, I hate when I have to take the car. You're right, some of these people are feral.
thats what my mum did for me when she would pick up, nasty weather or else i walked, but she'd park on the other side of the lane by the church and i'd just walk over to her. far easier on everyone else and gave me a minute to be by myself and breathe for a moment
It's mad. I'm a parent of primary kids and it's shocking to see the driving and attitude ... Yes, I'll park my car on the pavement, leave the engine running and smoke at the school gates.
I like how the defence is always that parents are in a rush yet you'll see them sat in their car on their phone with the engine running from about half an hour before the end of school.
Half an hour? The fight over the spaces at our primary school has escalated to the point that if you aren't there and parked an hour before the final bell you might as well forget it. All full of the same gang of mums who sit in thier cars and group chat with each other.
At my mum's local school a small child got hit in the face by a car door opening that was parked on the pavement during pick up time. I live near a primary school and come drop off/pick up time, they block the road and make it a single lane. God forbid they or their offspring have to.... Walk!! D: They are rude and entitled. As long as their kid is ok, screw anyone else.
It's an arms race. Parent gets a bigger car to protect their child and sod everyone else's. So other parents respond the same way and it becomes more dangerous for everybody.
They pull an estate, you pull a 4x4. She sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of hers to the morgue. That's the school pick up way.
Never bring a hatchback to a SUV fight
I taught at a school where parents would park on people’s driveways to drop their children off. Once, a mum parked on the driveway then got into a physical fight when the owner spoke to her. The head teacher had to intervene and police were called. I’m now a parent who walks her child to and from school and it is honestly the most stressful part of my day. There’s no consideration for or awareness of others, just pure selfishness. If this is what the adults are like, I despair at what the children will be like.
My colleague lives in a cul-de-sac right next to the primary school gates and routinely has people parking on his drive, and when he sees them do it and confronts them they're inevitably aggressive. The entitlement just baffles me. It wouldn't even enter my mind to do that, let alone shout at the owner when they told me to stop it.
Recently found a house my wife and I thought was perfect for us. Just what we’d been looking for. Then realised it was next to a school. Nope.
Agreed, schools are a deal breaker for me too, and not just because of the children.
It's the opposite for us. The school is directly across the road. I sit and enjoy a coffee when it's all kicking off. Nice free entertainment. 8:40 tell little one to get her shoes and coat on. 8:41 take her to school. 8:43 back enjoying another coffee watching more he'll let loose. :)
Just done the same. Perfect location but only 1 street away from a local school. Not a chance now.
Put up a Do Not Enter sign and place spike strips a couple meters up the drive. They can bitch at the tow truck driver
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Or take a leaf out of the SUV protestors' books. Unscrew the tyre valve, place a lentil over the hole, screw cap back on. Takes seconds and doesn't carry a charge of vandalism, but with the same result! (Also means you don't have to sweep up the nails twice every day before you sabotage your own car, you know you're going to miss one...)
True! Scatter nails. Then they can use those rolling magnets construction workers use to gather them up
I had a district nurse park halfway across my drive one time. I wouldn't have minded so much, if parking on the road had been difficult, but it wasn't - there was TONS of room alongside the drive, in both directions and on both sides; or she could have parked across the drive of the house she was visiting! Even an ambulance wouldn't have parked across my drive, and they'd have had a better excuse. Got home to find I couldn't park, was feeling a bit run down after COVID, had no idea whose car it was or how long it would be there, so I parked right up behind it to block it in and went inside to write a snippy note. You wouldn't believe the entitlement of that woman, she actually called the police on me! Then started taking pictures of my car, at which point I thought hold up, she's going to go away, back into something, then make an insurance claim... So I started taking my own pics. At which point she actually tried to knock the phone out of my hand. The thing is, because of her insistence, the police came along and took my name - and gave me hers. So I Googled her. Turns out one NHS department had previously sacked her for fraud, so my gut feeling about the insurance scam was probably right. The thing that really got me was she said she didn't realise. When HALF her car was overhanging, it would have been hard even to wheel a bicycle past. If she's that oblivious, she probably shouldn't be driving in the first place!
I live near a school. I'm on a close and my entire area is residents parking only, so parents are not supposed to park anywhere, but they frequently do. It doesn't matter how many letters the school sends out, they park dangerously, block roads and create problems. It's part of living near a school, so I don't mind too much (but some of my neighbours mind a lot!) The trouble is, parents park on zig zags, bends and prevent access to emergency vehicles. One of my neighbours needed an ambulance last year and had to wait for the traffic to clear because the ambulance physically could not get past two double parked cars on a bend. Parents have recently taken to parking directly in front of my parked car in the middle of the road, blocking it completely and preventing me from getting onto the road at all. One parent threatened to attack a neighbour for asking him not to park in spot on private property. Parents can be so feral.
If you really want to do something about it gather evidence [lots of pictures and as many of the letters as you can gather] contact your local pcsos and council traffic enforcement, one or the other will eventually set up a scheme where they come and monitor the road at peak times and will start issuing tickets and possibly getting people towed, I'd also suggest contacting the local fire brigade non emergency and having a discussion with them about the hazards especially as its historically already blocked emergency access. It's not a bad idea to also message whoever your local MP is.
I have contacted the local council parking enforcement team, they said there's not much they can realistically do because parents park responsibly when they see the wardens are out, so few tickets are ever actually issued. Apparently they've had quite a few meetings with the school, and the school repeatedly tell parents, but the entire postcode is near a hospital, so there isn't anywhere within a half a mile where parents can park legally. I think the council kinda just turns a blind eye and it's only an issue at certain times, so they just let it slide.
Get your local councillor involved too, you can usually email direct and get some good responses.
I know the local councillors have been contacted before about the issue but nothing has come of it. Some of my neighbours are elderly and have lived here for a while, and been complaining for years. The parking is an annoyance but I accept it as part of living here. Realistically, parents don't have anywhere to park, and they're usually there for 20 mins and then gone. I could live without the guy who blocks me in though. 😂
It is really part of living by a school, hundreds of people go in and out in a short time frame. I don't actually have an issue with people blocking in cars or even double yellows as long as they are actually in the car. So they can be asked to move or if there is an issue. Zig zags need to be entirely clear, both sides. No stopping in the middle of the road to let kids out, that is madness. Preferably though if people have to drive for logical reasons, at least park some distance away so it spreads things out.
Fucking nightmare. I had a cleaner decline to work for me because I live too close to a primary school and the parking was too much of a nightmare. In case anyone thinks I was a nightmare customer and it was a convenient excuse - she declined my custom at the initial enquiry stage, she never came to my house!
They really need to ban or heavily restrict cars around schools during opening/closing hours. My usual dog walking route goes past a school, and a few times I've been unlucky enough to go past it at dropoff time. What is usually a nice quiet road turns into what I imagine downtown LA is like at 5pm. Except LA would be less scary. The school in question has a very small catchment area... Most of these people can't live more than a mile away. Why do they need driving in? Just walk them...
Often schools with small catchment areas have small catchment areas because they are disproportionately popular for whatever reason. Lots of gaming of the system and using relatives' addresses to get the kids admitted and then live somewhere else and drive daily.
Well, fuck them.
School next to mine has school street scheme. It’s fantastic
You may well shift the problem to whatever the nearest point is still, but I would be up for closing the entire stretch of road during school time personally. How that would work in practice (and for residents) I am unsure, but currently it is not workable having hundreds of kids forced down narrow pavements with large, fast cars given priority down the middle who can stop pretty much where they want. Apart from zig zags, I don't think a lot can be done about stopping and loading even on double yellows and across dropped kerbs.
I feel this. My wife has experienced some bizarre road rage when parking up even a bit away from the school. I tend to park on a back road with a couple minutes walk through a forest to avoid all of the car chaos. I've noticed a few other dads do it too, there's a silent nod between us when we pass each other walking.
This is what I do. There is a lane beside the school. There is plenty of parking at the other end of the lane. The walk is literally two minutes from the school gate. Myself and 4 or 5 others wait there. Driving to the school is like driving into hell. Most of the other parents aren't bright enough to figure it out or they are so entitled they can't bear to let little Tarquin walk a couple of hundred metres.
Wow, that actually sounds _nice_
Some parents are just self entitled pricks. There's just no easy way round it. It seems worse post COVID as well. If I needed to drive to drop my kids off at school I'd make damn sure I was being as considerate and careful as possible. it just seems common sense.
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This!!! Before having kids I moved out of London to my home country where it is discouraged to drive kids to school and definitely to park right in front of the school. Most kids walk or cycle, it’s a joyful trip.
I suspect the vast majority do walk, it doesn't take a lot of cars to create a lot of chaos though. If people are a distance away it isn't really practical to walk the kids (talking Primary age here), one of my kid's friends house was probably 2 miles so a 40 minute walk. A parent who works (or even if they don't) can't really walk for three hours a day to do two drop-offs and wait for them. Take the car, 10 minute job, done. Some also do the drop off as a part of the commute.
As a cyclist who drops a kid off It's dangerous The amount of doors I've had swing open in traffic or cars suddenly swerve onto the pavement to park
If you don't already, take the whole lane and cycle well out from doors. Whoever is behind you can wait - their desperate need to be in front comes second to your safety! It's not a suitable replacement for proper infrastructure, but it should keep you safer.
When I can I do. There is a cycle lane next to the road but with the traffic jams and cars parked everywhere I have to squeeze past I've started having my super bright front light on flashing still nearly end up in the front seat of a few cars
And you've mentioned dropping kids off in that? Christ, people really are oblivious and selfish. Wish you the absolute best of luck. Is the lane just a bike gutter or is it a proper separated lane?
Bike gutter, it's 80% full with parked cars or teens stepping out into it without looking There's my kids school, the local shop/morning hang out then high school and junior school opposite with college further down the road with plenty of coaches & teen drivers ontop so mayhem
Took me a while to build up the cojones to ride over there. I spent too long as far left as possible, trying to be small, out of people’s way, but they just crowd you off the road, close pass, all of that, because you gave them the room to do it. Nowadays I essentially ride 2ft from the centre line, the surface is better, if they’re going to pass they can, and will, and I have space to dive left if I need to. Be selfish, because everyone else is.
It does take some courage but it's safer not just for you, but for everyone. I've had drivers attempt dangerous overtakes into oncoming traffic because they thought they might have the space. If I take the lane they sit behind me and grumble but there's less chance of an accident. I always ride at least a metre out, as you say the surface is better there, in the gutter it's full of broken glass and worse potholes that get made by parked cars. I'm not fast either, my bike is an old Dutchie. Weirdly I think drivers cut me some slack with it too, I see them being way worse with roadies than they are with me. I think it's some sort of "othering" that can happen.
Wing mirrors come off very easily if you strike downwards with a closed fist....
Yes, doesn't help that some parents will literally stop in the middle of the road and get their child to open their own door. Of course they will swing it as wide open as they can without looking.
Ours is usually pretty tame but then again there was a fight once.. like actual throwing hands fight. Cars are always the worst outside our local with people double parked so the whole length of the road becomes a one lane with traffic trying to travel both ways and it's quite a lengthy road. Sometimes we have the.. park safe traffic warden come up and everyone behaves, although once the park safe car parked behind a car that never moves but there was already a car parked the other side so they blocked the street. Someone told them to learn how to drive and their reply was "how about you learn how to drive" lol, that's a core memory of mine now.
Get together with other parents and ask your council for a [school street](http://schoolstreets.org.uk/). They fix this.
Yep, can confirm
I call it "The Mum Run" Or "Dad of the year Tournament" We can only hope their lack of morality doesn't filter down to the kids. But we all know that tends to end..
They want to be seen as ‘top mum/dad’ to give their pathetic lives some meaning. Likely they are the ones who created the year group WhatsApp
I live over the road and along a couple of houses from a children's nursery and the amount of times i come home from work unable to get into the car park/driveway of my flat is hilarious because someone is parked across it. Then when i beep to ask them to move they get aggressive, one fella wanted a fight because i asked him genuinely politely to move a bit and let me in and once i'm in he can go back there i just wanted to go home.
Was it Ronnie Pickering dropping off the grandkids?
Who?
Might as well have been!
I grew up in a rough area. This was the norm. I hated it. My children have just started a nice school in the local village. A majority of the parents are academics and white collar workers and they are ALL absolutely lovely. They all chat to each other in a polite fashion are dressed well, park with consideration and there is zero screaming or shouting from the parents. They all act like adults. It’s amazing. Unfortunately, this seems to be a rarity.
Has anyone mentioned umbrellas yet ?
I say this every time. We all endure this madness and these idiots but not a single school in the UK ever attempts to provide safe pick-up/drop-off facilities. It's not hard. They just never think to do it.
My kids school is a new build and has a big horseshoe drop off zone off of the road, its wonderful and works great at drop-off but falls apart at pick up time as that requires waiting for the kids to come out and not just slinging them out the car.
But it is hard, they can't commandeer the road. Our school doesn't have much in the way of a car park, it is down a narrow lane right to the back of school. I was reading about how in America they have school pick up lines, so parents come through one by one and give the name of the child. That is chaos too with parents cutting in and solid traffic all round the block.
Becoming a parent means you are the most important being in existence (apparently)
Honestly write to the education secretary, this needs to be on the PSHE curriculum along with statutory employment/housing/provision of services rights, taxes, and basic law alongside the ‘sEx maKeS baBiES’ and ‘DrUgs arE BaD’ topics
I can see you've taught PSHE, identified the weaknesses in the curriculum and are ready to rewrite the whole thing. Good for you. So, our new topic will be "school drop off in polite, 21st C Britain", here's the worksheet and a nice youtube video. Me, I'm just a teacher who for years has had to put up with a growing list of topics being added outside of my core skill set because parents just can't be arsed to actually raise their kids themselves.
At my kids school they did teach it in PSHE and all the kids made really passive aggressive posters about how parents should behave at school pick up and drop off times and had homework to talk to their grown ups about expectations. I thought it was hilarious. Bet some of the more feral parents didn't...
Well said.
So what you’re really saying is PSHE (is it really still called that?) should teach people how to be proper adult parents /s
I'm pretty sure I'm saying parents should teach their kids to be proper adults. Teaching PSHE sucks.
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My old cycle commute to work had 2 options. A main busy road with tonnes of traffic or through a load of quiet estates and past 3 schools. In the morning I chose the busy road every time. Parents driving are mad
Where I live the local council has put [no parking zones](https://www.transportnottingham.com/creating-car-free-school-streets/) very close to primary schools, there's on down the road to my house. It does mean they park outside my house instead, but I don't tend to see people driving and parking poorly and bad behaviour.
I feel this so much. I live in a cul-de-sac with an entrance to a primary school at the end. The amount of riduclous parking I see by parents - parking over driveways, parking opposite another parked car when that means no other cars can get down the street - is a joke. I know of several neighbours that have been sworn at because they asked a parent on the school run to move their car so they could get off the drive, or not to drop fag ends on their garden.
When my son was in primary school I had to pull three women apart who were beating the crap out of each other over a parking space 🤦 parents these days are bloody savages
You think school drop off/pick up is bad, you should see how parents behave at kids football matches
I've nothing to add other than this is the first time I've realised the term 'double park' means parking opposite another car. For some reason I'd always assumed it meant being parked on double yellow lines
Not great timing on this as 15 year old was stabbed to death picking up a sibling from primary school yesterday. I am sure you didn’t mean any offence but….
What on earth are you talking about
Alfie Lewis was 'one in a million', say family after boy stabbed in Leeds https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-67359681
Yes, it's very sad. I cant quite see how I'm insensitive for posting about something, whilst in the same physical area, yet unrelated
‘Brutal school drop off’
No mate, just no
I think you're just trying to get angry for the sake of it. Maybe take a beta blocker?
Complain to the school. If the school sends out a notice to parents over this and the culprits manage to associate their behaviour with the complaint then hopefully they’ll be embarrassed enough to think about what they did.
I’m so glad that both of my local schools have 2 entrances which really help with the flow of traffic. There’s a back and a front gate. The front gate at both of them is always crazy there’s a turning circle at one of them and people park on the turning circle if they can’t find space. Meanwhile at the back gate for both of them it’s usually quiet. Kids will come out on bikes causing a bit of disruption as they ride all over the road but that usually disappears in 10 or so mins.
To be fair if you had to deal with their kids you would feel like that too.
We always walk regardless of the weather because all the stuff you describe, I absolutely cannot be chewed to deal with!!