[Closed] First day at school

If you think it is carnage now, just you wait until the first rainy day!

Very shocked and disappointed by the poor

Boris? Is that you?

OMG, no! It was bin collection day today though which made negotiating the pavement with younger sister and the 10 week old brother in the pram harder... Hadn't thought of a rainy day's carnage though, shoot me now.

If you think it is carnage now, just you wait until the first rainy day!

That was today!

It only took a handful of cars to create problems for everyone else.

Mrs and I nearly got dust in the eye as eldest daughter walked in today, blimey.

My son starts next Wednesday.  I'm very worried about extending the leash for a 20 minute solo walk to School, but its got to happen sometime.

Did you not have a staggered drop off?

We walk our kids in where we don't have to be somewhere straight after, and always park a several streets back,

It's like a war zone. people rant about why parents should walk or cycle to work - its bloody dangerous thats why. No way i'd let my kids walk or cycle to school like I did back in the day.

I've seen near fights as an inconsiderate mum parking on a junction right by the school reversed and nearly ran a bunch of parents and kids over.

They should bring in charge per journey on all vehicles that would make people think about their use

My main emotion is thank **** we get some peace and quiet for a few hours at home now! Step-daughter is no longer at the posh school where the yummy mummies in Q7s are deadly, thankfully.

At our little ones primary school they are installing gates to physically close the roads at drop off and pick up time. If you live in that little loop of roads and have parked on your own drive then your car will be locked in twice a day for 20 or 30 minutes, not sure how that's legal but am keen to see what difference it makes

Standard on school days...you quickly adapt to the idiots...

am keen to see what difference it makes

It'll probably just displace the problem to neighbouring streets.

Why not have a "buses only" zone at controlled times, camera enforcement, fines, exemption for residents?

It only took a handful of cars to create problems for everyone else.

And it’s generally the same handful of cars, or in the case of the last school, the same dozen cars.

Generally goes like this:

Same bunch of cars park like dickheads, on zigzags, in spaces where the school has put little person shaped signs IN THE ROAD every morning.

Local resident(s) and/or parent(s) complain.

Headteacher sends out email pleading with people to park maybe a further thirty seconds walk away from the school gates.

Everybody behaves responsibly for around a week.

A few drivers start acting like arseholes again, until the same dozen or so lead us back to the beginning.

Rinse and repeat around 3 times a term. 😂

Our kids are long past primary, thank goodness, but their school was between a large Asda car park and a housing estate. Huge numbers of parents would mess around in the housing estate to get as near to the infant side of the school as they could. At the other end of the school, people would queue to get to the part of the car park nearest to the Junior school doors.

If using the car, my wife would park at the far side of the Asda car park and walk the kids across.

A huge number of people are lazy, selfish idiots.

First day of school so the obligatory photo was taken. However this time it was of me and the wife celebrating that the kids were out the house and back to school.

staggered drop off, yes, my eldest started n reception today at 0830 along with some other years by the look of it, some later years were 0845. I see your point...possible increased carnage if all years at the same time....then again some mums will currently have a 15 minute wait...the lexus that parked up on he zigzags perhaps. the school is small, one form per year so maybe not as bad as others, although its on a busy through road. the other school we considered is the opposite, 3 forms and down a quiet residential....they now have camera enforced no entry at school times which does push the carnage further away and since it spreads it in two directions its slightly better i think...but i avoid that spot at school times anyway.
youngest will start at nursery in a third direction next week, twice as far but generally we walked the eldest. parking was bad their too but i don't think it was on the zigzags. On the occasions i drove I parked across the park in front and walked across, as did err...one other mum. astounding that more didn't use their legs for 60 seconds and make the drop off easy for themselves really. as you say mike, many selfish idiots.
DT78, I agree, far too many consider their car a right and don't consider feet or bikes, not even to ensure other users safety!

bibbles...youngest daughter starts school next year but with a 10 week old boy we've 4 more years before they are all out the house....I need help!

Why not have a “buses only” zone at controlled times, camera enforcement, fines, exemption for residents?

Because this nearly always seems to end up charging the residents to park at their own house and unable to have visitors.
Our council have been pushing this as the panacea for years. It's a "reverse NIMBY" ... where the council try and get support from other areas to make the residents in another area pay whilst quietly implying this will prevent it happening where they live.

** Reverse Nimby.... someone who supports every development in other neighbourhoods but their own based on better in your back-yard than mine.

We live on the same street as a football stadium... recent proposals were to increase the gate by 50% whilst building over 1000 commuter flats in high rise. 300 parking spaces for the 1048 flats... (a fair distance from the station) 6 (yes 6 not a typo) places for a 10,000 seat stadium (after using the parking for the flats) ... and the entire area (50% pensioners) no visitors and residents parking only

* New school is past the stadium.... where the 2000 current fans currently park...
** Apparently making a 10,000 seat stadium will magically create 8,000 new fans*

Same here in the south east. E mail to parents, drops off for a couple of days then back to normal.

SO walks with children neighbour drives and takes at least twice as long!

Funniest thing was last summer I was waiting to meet my children. LOADS mums all having a chat. A boy racer zooms up the road and onto a drive. His passenger gets out. He revereses off the drive rather quickly and stalls. Gaggle of mothers encirle the car and read him the riot act.

I think he learnt his lesson.

If there’s one thing you can guarantee with school drop off it’s the bigger and newer the car, the worse the sense of entitlement.
My remaining school age child goes on the train and walks, but sometimes I pick her up if I’m nearby and am always shocked by the behaviour of middle class parents in massive child killing, bike squashing, atmosphere polluting battle tanks.

* New school is past the stadium…. where the 2000 current fans currently park…
** Apparently making a 10,000 seat stadium will magically create 8,000 new fans****

Make up your mind, are you upset about the 8000 extra fans, and their impact on your parking, or concerned that they are building a needless extra 8000 seats. It can't be both.

I can see I'm going to have a much longer list of bug bears about drivers, as a cycle commuter I already have a lengthy list

It’s like a war zone. people rant about why parents should walk or cycle to work – its bloody dangerous thats why. No way i’d let my kids walk or cycle to school like I did back in the day.

Son1 had his first day at school! After months of sitting around and not really doing very much, he seemed to have a good time, although the early starts will be a challenge. I even adjusted his new school uniform!

Now the disclaimer - Son1 is now a graduate teaching assistant, he finished his MRES in April and his new school uniform is one of my suits.

If there’s one thing you can guarantee with school drop off it’s the bigger and newer the car, the worse the sense of entitlement.

I used to think this. But then made myself actually take notice of all the rubbish drop off behaviour, rather than just the ones that my prejudices made me notice. The reality is all sorts of families can drop off in a dangerous or anti-social way... not just those with pointlessly expensive looking vehicles.

All of this and many road safety issues, etc. could be solved very quickly if we wanted. Let the offenders burden the cost of enforcement, if a traffic warden is needed, ANPR cameras, speed cameras etc. the cost of these should be covered by the fines. At the moment any revenue generated goes back into the treasury pot, positive disincentive to councils tackling the issues, all the grief and cost and no way to pay for it.

We need to stop pussy footing around, most drivers know they are in the wrong and do it anyway, if you don't know you shouldn't park on the zig zags you shouldn't be driving. No will power from our populist led politicians. Thing is it's a small minority that speed, park illegally, drive like dicks. In the world of private parking it's only about 3% of motorists who break the rules, everyone else manages to the read the signs and not get a PCN.

Speeding is the same, it's a commuter route past our village school, lots of speeding, 3 miles of 30 mph limits, 3 average speed cameras would stop it dead.

Make up your mind, are you upset about the 8000 extra fans, and their impact on your parking, or concerned that they are building a needless extra 8000 seats. It can’t be both.

Neither don't shoot the messenger.
.. if the enough of football fans want or are stupid enough for the chairperson of the football club and her husband on the council to retire with a nice pot of backhanders at the cost of the club that's fine by me. If they can't be bothered to read the financial report THEY paid for that details how the club will go from losing 20k a season to 500k per season that's their fault. They need a new stand but the council (led by her husband) won't let them have a new stand (they bought the land directly with her husband using delegated authority since found to be abused and now being investigated but not due to publish until after her husband retires) ... instead they must demolish the 6000 seater that never see's a gate over 2000 and build a 10,000 and the story is this will get the players to somehow play better, be promoted and they will have a gate of 10,000...

I'm also concerned they justify the 1048 new flats based on a requirement that is false, complained about by the borough's next door and supported by the independent government inspector... who also noted that missing this out of the development plan (10% of the population) is not a "minor" change that can be brought in AFTER section 18 consultation as they claim.

Indeed the planning offices own SHDLC states that our borough requires 3+ bed houses not commuter bedsits and this takes the 25-30 dph to just under 1000 dph...

Parking was one issue.. part of the wider reverse NIMBY approach using Boris' own personal PR agency where residents outside the ward were told to support this top prevent more housing being built in their own ward. Indeed most of the support was from outside the ward and several thousand support letters from places like Holland, the US, Nigeria, Croatia, Montnegro...

As part of proving the impact they resurrected a school closed in the 1970's and wildly overestimated the capacities of others and invented a new 6th form. The school with no 6th form was not consulted... neither were the primary schools who's capacity was nearly doubled. [no councillor could possibly be unaware of this]

Despite all these inconsistencies some of the other ward councillors supported the parking changes (makes little difference to me, I'm never at home weekends and we have a drive - Ethel (80) opposite has no drive ) relies on the bus and her deliveries, gardener and handyman being able to park outside.

I'm more concerned that this is at a cost of £250M of public money being loaned to a developer with a string of failed projects

Mrs and I nearly got dust in the eye as eldest daughter walked in today,

Wait till you go to your youngest's "leaving primary" assembly. I was in ****ing bits 😭

SO walks with children neighbour drives and takes at least twice as long!

That's a key part of the problem right there.

Not the driving, but that you've got two neighbouring kids each being taken to the same place by two sets of parents. Why not take turns?

Even with staggered starts, hundreds of kids = hundreds of cars, it's just not scaleable. When I was at secondary school the entire school run traffic was four double-decker buses.

Let the offenders burden the cost of enforcement

As soon as you profit from enforcement you're into the realms of the private clampers of a few years back, enforcement "officers" hiding in bushes and ticketing ambulances.

Maybe a solution could be to allow fines to only cover the cost of enforcement and any profit beyond that goes back to the treasury as per? That'd work I think?

Wait till you go to your youngest’s “leaving primary” assembly

Cruelly robbed of that opportunity by coronavirus. My youngest started High School three weeks ago.

Why not take turns?

It's hard enough getting your own kids oragnised to get out to school without having to deal with other peoples.

Thing is it’s a small minority that speed, park illegally, drive like dicks. In the world of private parking it’s only about 3% of motorists who break the rules, everyone else manages to the read the signs and not get a PCN.

Hardly... our council has it's own subcons... the neighbouring ones not.
The actual council employee traffic warden in the next borough let me off when I'd parked on the wrong side of the road having bought a ticket that apparently is only valid on the other side.

He told me he's done this a lot and seen people go and pay parked on the wrong side and told them... nearly every day.

Not the driving, but that you’ve got two neighbouring kids each being taken to the same place by two sets of parents. Why not take turns?

Government advice is not to do this right now. They also ask for more parents to drop off their kids to make space on buses. Staggered starts should make this perfectly doable (except for those with two or more kids at the same school).

let me off when I’d parked on the wrong side of the road having bought a ticket that apparently is only valid on the other side.

What kind of petty bobbins is that in the first place?

Even with staggered starts, hundreds of kids = hundreds of cars, it’s just not scaleable. When I was at secondary school the entire school run traffic was four double-decker buses.

I used to cycle or get the bus from Rosegrove then Padiham to Blackburn. Before the M65 I could beat the bus nearly every time.

What kind of petty bobbins is that in the first place?

Boundaries often run down the middle of a street.

What kind of petty bobbins is that in the first place?

Different rules each side.... certain hours is residents only one side and pay on the other.
Outside those hours it's pay on both... or free on both at other times.... ticket machines both side but doesn't make it clear it's just at one side at certain times.

If you read it very carefully ... especially once you know it's written but the traffic warden said loads of people make genuine mistakes... (as he said who'd park on the wrong side then pay when there are spaces on the other)

Government advice is not to do this right now.

Oh, sure. I wasn't really talking about right now (in honesty it didn't even enter my head) and these are atypical times of course.

I was meaning in more general terms. Do school buses not exist any more? Do neighbouring parents not car-share? I used to get caught up in a school run on my commute if I timed it wrong, I know it#s a cliché but you'd routinely see 7-seater 4x4s dropping off a single kid.

Yeah, the leaving primary concert is a full on emotional assault.

I used to cycle or get the bus from Rosegrove then Padiham to Blackburn. Before the M65 I could beat the bus nearly every time.

You'd still beat it today. The road's closed for major roadworks between the crossroads up from Rose Grove and J9, it's carnage of a morning (or was when I had to commute there).

Boundaries often run down the middle of a street.

Ah misinterpreted Cougar....
The street has houses on one side.... the other paradoxically has a car park (same price etc) and a multistorey 100m down (I think is also same price).
Most of the local "businesses" are actually doctors and dentists.... and a hotel. If you were going into "town" the multistory is more convenient....

The eldest two got on the bus this morning. They are the second stop inside the catchment area and the bus looked full. So much for the County’s assurance of seats for everyone seated in their bubble groups, although how the hell that was supposed to work when there is only the driver to police it I am not sure.

You’d still beat it today. The road’s closed for major roadworks between the crossroads up from Rose Grove and J9, it’s carnage of a morning (or was when I had to commute there).

Be nice to think so....I could pretend I'm still as fit as 40 yrs ago 😉

I used to think this. But then made myself actually take notice of all the rubbish drop off behaviour, rather than just the ones that my prejudices made me notice. The reality is all sorts of families can drop off in a dangerous or anti-social way… not just those with pointlessly expensive looking vehicles.

Even the opposite.
When I was at primary school my mum worked and we walked to school and back.
sometimes my gran would come and pick us up...

Now the primary DS just left and OH teaches at won't allow kids to go in alone and worse encourages "independence" for Yr 6 to "drop them round the corner".

Now mum and dad both need to work for most families and have to be at work.
OH worked at the same school so that worked for us but how else would a teacher (for example) or whomever drop their kid at one school whilst already being at another school miles away??

When I was at secondary school the entire school run traffic was four double-decker buses.

When I was at secondary school I'd have rather dies than been dropped off by a parent. Everyone walked.

Headteacher sends out email pleading with people to park maybe a further thirty seconds walk away from the school gates.

Headteacher needs to put a hi-vis jacket on and physically get out there and sort it, not send emails.

That'll fix it.