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[quote=duckman ]My Dad was assaulted by a guy because he objected to a woman parking IN his drive while she waited for her kids. She came back the next day
with hubby who broke my 76 yo Dad's collar bone.
Well some people are just thugs. I'm hoping he got locked up for that?
Reading all this it makes me realise just how good it is here. Sure there is some inconsiderate parking near the school, but it's really a tiny amount compared to what most other people are mentioning. The biggest issue seems to be people parking in the parish hall car park next to the school which they're not supposed to, but I think even that has become much less of an issue since a lot of publicity went round.
I wonder what it is that makes it different here? I don't think there's a huge difference in car use - plenty enough people driving who live on our road or nearby whilst we get there quicker by walking, but I don't think many if any drive there and back - most are driving on to work which is fair enough. On the day my youngest has gymnastics straight after school I park on the back road and walk across the fields as there isn't time to walk home and get to the class - plenty of other cars parked considerately there, and also extensive use of the allowed parking at the Chinese restaurant 1/4 of a mile from the school.
I guess there's maybe a bit of a virtuous circle that once you get a level of consideration for other people established then it's self-fulfilling - and there certainly are a lot of kids walking/cycling the 1/2 a mile to school from around us, along with parents actually interacting with each other in a friendly way (and I don't mean cliques either). It does prove that it is possible to avoid these issues though.
A school I pass every morning has a couple of parents (I think) in hi-vis open the car doors to get the children out so it is fast and the cars only stop for 10secs without parking. Its only at the busiest time and shouldn't be needed but seems to help
Don't we have this topic monthly?
Its always the same culprits I've found. PCSO's are round occasionally, but it seems they are toothless tigers. I've heard some terrible four letter abuse being metered out by the most notorious family. So it carries on.
To make matters worse, the firm that empties the bins insists on doing it during the school run. The mind boggles at the sheer inept, stubborn stupidity of whoever schedules that.
A lady who's daughter befriended my son is one culprit. I mentioned it to her one day. What astonished me is that she is totally oblivious to the fact that she is doing anything wrong. She seemed to posses a belief that her convenience should come above everything else, regardless of the potential danger she causes to others. I mentioned the speed at which approaches the school in her car, a Quashqui, but likewise, totally oblivious to the danger she causes. And the saddest thing, I see nothing to lead me to believe that this way of thinking will ever change, it will only spread.
For a long time I've held the belief that school parking would be better managed, than banned. Your simply not going to stop people driving to school. Its for such a short period that I think it could be. Adaptable road layouts, warden controlled drop off zones, not wardens to stop people parking but to unload kids & shepherd them through a safe zone, in to school.
Maybe a visit by the police and some S59 notices for the drivers would sort out attitudes?
You see similar albeit less extreme behavior in shops/shopping centres.....giant car parks with hundreds of empty spaces but people circling around so they can cram in on top of everyone else to get as close to the door as possible.
Our local (massive) supermarket nearly always has a thousand or so cars parked outside. It has bicycle racks right by the front door. In ten years of my cycling there the maximum amount of bicycles I've ever seen chained there (by shoppers) at any one time would be [b]two[/b]. And the store is served by a dedicated cycle path to and from surrounding housing estates. Mine, all mine! And no annoying kids on the adjoining footpaths as they're all either indoors on their iThings or in the Chelsea tractor being ferried to retail establishments 😉
My wife used to walk or take the granny bike (? Omafiets) to work. 20 minutes on foot. 5 on the bike. There's a primary school half way and a secondary school about 50 metres past the factory gate.
The guy on the next desk to her used to come in every single morning swearing and cursing about the traffic and parking at the factory as he had to drop kids of at both schools and always got to work after the good spaces had gone. She sympathised with him until she found out that she walked past his front door every morning........ she swore at him quite a bit.
He wasn't alone either.
Cars are evolution innit?!
Just remembered visiting Ireland (South West coastal villages) in recent years - the one striking thing I saw were teenage kids walking everywhere! Groups of them just walking along country lanes, talking to each other. They walked past our wall and stopped to wish us good morning! It struck me then that the kids back home are (to paraphrase Heathcote Williams) like a disconnected species that appear to be inserted into (or ejected from) cars.
If an alien was to hover a few hundred yards above the planet
It could be forgiven for thinking
That cars were the dominant life-form,
And that human beings were a kind of ambulatory fuel cell:
Injected when the car wished to move off,
And ejected when they were spent.Extract from the poem 'Autogeddon' - Heathcote Williams (The Whole Earth Review. 1987)
I drive our kids to school and I hate it.
We applied to the nearest school 500m away and didn't get in because we didn't lie on the application and pretend to be Catholic so we got allocated a school 2 miles away.
There is no safe cycle route - though there is a perfect space for one to be put in. Walking takes an hour there and back for me which I don't have most mornings and evenings. There is no bike parking at the school.
Last year my children did an exchange with some Dutch kids. They cycled every day to school and needless to say the Dutch kids who came over here couldn't believe everybody drove.
Its bonkers.
I have bought an electric car though which means at least i'm not contributing to local emissions
Where I live Chelsea tractor vs Fendt guess who won, and guess how many people don't park on the stretch where the farm access meets.
What will driverless cars with kids in them do when sent to the school ?
Actually this would be the best test of driverless either drive past school at madness time - or drop off kid safely.
What will driverless cars with kids in them do when sent to the school ?
(Given sufficiently high AI rating of said driverless car) the car will realise that 100+ cars arriving in one location daily actually resemble needlessly numerous and very inefficient school buses. The car will then repeatedly slap itself about the face (using windscreen wipers, silly) and skulk back to the garage - thereby generating enormous savings and benefits for it's slave/master*
* ie costs of needlesslyrunning two cars, plus helping teach independence, timekeeping and social skills (not to mention personal responsibility) to the children
The days I work from home or have off and I walk my children to school are some of my favourites... the days I have to drive and drop them off on my way to work are my absolute least favourite.
[quote=Malvern Rider ]Our local (massive) supermarket nearly always has a thousand or so cars parked outside. It has bicycle racks right by the front door. In ten years of my cycling there the maximum amount of bicycles I've ever seen chained there (by shoppers) at any one time would be two. And the store is served by a dedicated cycle path to and from surrounding housing estates. Mine, all mine!
Morrisons? I have to admit I almost always drive there (I think I've been once on a bike), but then I live about 3 miles away along a busy and lumpy main road - I'd happily enough cycle there, but it's not all that handy for doing a shop (and if I'm not going to do a big shop I'll be going to do something else in Malvern). If I do go on the bike it will be to the Coop in the other direction which is a bit nearer.
Are you referring to the cycle path alongside the ring road? Or is there one I don't know about going to the housing estates in the Link?
TBH, i'd love to be able to go shopping by bike (at least during the summer) as i can get there by using mostly dirt tracks, cycle lanes and footpaths (and about a km of *really* quiet road. Only time i generally see a car moving down there is when i'm driving along it......)
Unfortunately, it's also nearly 15 km each way. And the last 2km is pretty much one long steady drag with a kick at the end.
So i keep looking at a cargo bike, so i can make the 30km journey worthwhile (weeks shop in one hit) rather than having to do two or three trips.
Other option is a trailer.
But a cargo bike fulfills n+1.
aracer - Morrisons?
Yes, plus a zip through Spring Lane or some cheeky Back of Mozzers footpath to The Link/Lidl 😉
Are you referring to the cycle path alongside the ring road? Or is there one I don't know about going to the housing estates in the Link?
Yes the one along Townsend Way that services Poundbank, Madresfield Road, Barnard's Green etc. when I used to cycle down from Great Malvern I could usually navigate the backstreets (artfully dodging the numerous, deadly and unpredictable granny-wagons) or cut across the fields down the Slar under the railway bridge - joining the cycle path at Pickersleigh Court. Once loaded I'd often take a 'scenic' loop via Lidl to grab some essentials and then head home around the backstreets/alleyways of The Link/Link Top until emerging again in North Malvern heading home along Back Lane.
Weekly shopping via bike is 'me' time so I generally make a proper meal of it, grabbing a coffee en route etc 🙂
I realise it's not for everyone but every time I go by car I enjoy it so much less that it's a different experience altogether.
I often wonder if I'd do it if had to use main roads with no cycle paths? Probably not nowadays. Too many close-calls, at least in that neck of the woods.
[quote=Malvern Rider ]I often wonder if I'd do it if had to use main roads with no cycle paths? Probably not nowadays. Too many close-calls, at least in that neck of the woods.
If you hadn't worked it out, I'm in Powick. It's far from a horrendous road to ride along given the width means most motorists feel no need to pass you close, but neither is it all that pleasant a ride, and not really anywhere else on the way to pop into. I'm afraid it is just a lot easier in the car, and given there's very little congestion on that bit of road when I make the trip and I'm not causing any problems parking I'm not about to feel guilty using a car!
Given the lengths parents will go to to get their kids into their preferred school why not just exclude the kids of the repeatedly dangerous parkers.
I'm new to the school run. Shudder. Walking ,or the bus for us.
People actually double park on a narrow one way street. Mostly taxis ,but there are a few super important parents who just have to be next to the gate.
I like the idea of the older kids in hi vis taking photos ,may suggest that to the "council". Another shudder.
but ours has had to employ private parking attendant to prevent random parking in the disabled parking area/turning head/ main school access. then people complain about the costs?? its a messed up society
Better solution is to get the local traffic authority to install school keep clear and pass a traffic order for CEO enforcement, as long as it is not gated then it is still considered as highway in the relevant parts of legislation (RTRA) even if it is not adopted public highway.