School Run

Commuting, Day rides, Audax, Incidents, etc.
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Cugel
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Re: School Run

Post by Cugel »

Bonefishblues wrote:
Psamathe wrote:Near me it's quite horrendous. Not only for cyclists but also driving a car.

Apart from the pulling out without looking, opening doors without looking, walking out without looking, etc., etc. one school near me is on a fairly tight bend, 2 way road. Normally when driving the bend is no issue because 2 cars or car with oncoming lorry, etc. can pass without problems. But school run drivers park illegally on the bend making drivers from on direction pull out onto the opposite side of the road whilst vehicles coming the other way can't see any issues and it's really dangerous and really illegal.

I've e-mailed the school about this and got back a "we've tried to stop it but it didn't stop it" - which angered me as quite pathetic. My next e-mail pointed out e.g. get local Police Officer to visit at 15:00 and issue tickets to every illegally parked car (and after 3 days there would no longer be an issue) or send out a teacher with a smartphone and take photos of illegally parked cars and when a parent asks what they are doing say "they are being submitted to the Police as you are illegally parked" and work will soon get round and people will stop. I identified loads of things they could do .... but nothing done, problem continues and school seems unmotivated to even recognise the danger they are creating.

I had to drive out through a local one yesterday and parent standing in roadside door then pushing door fully open just as I was alongside (I was in a car) - but they did give me time to swerve (if you can call it swerve at 10'ish mph).

Ian

On the subject of illegality, it isn't always clear-cut. For a couple of years we had a local resident who habitually parked a very large Transit equivalent opposite a T junction (i.e. on the junction, as it were), causing an obvious hazard. The police advised there was nothing they could do, so he continued to park there.


Out on the bikes today, we came across a large tractor towing an even larger gubbins that wanted to turn left off a road up a junction, with a number of houses on the right of the road, outside of which the residents had all parked, thus narrowing the road right along the section in which the junction is central. In trying to get as far right as possible, to get his tractor + gubbins 'round into the narrow entrance to the junction road, the gubbins had swiped one or more parked cars, not to mention demolished a flower pot or three outside the houses.

Now, this road with its junction is habitually traversed by large tractors with gubbin,s as the village is in the middle of extensive farmland to all sides. But the residents of them houses can't be bothered to walk a few yards to their front doors, instead wishing to park on their doorstep. Now they have been tractor-bit i' the pride&joy. There will no doubt be moaning, especially when the P&J owners spot their crushed plant pots an' all!

The tractor driver had got out and was knocking on all their doors, no doubt to say sorry; but get your bluddy cars out of the road.

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Mike Sales
Posts: 7883
Joined: 7 Mar 2009, 3:31pm

Re: School Run

Post by Mike Sales »

Cugel wrote:
Out on the bikes today, we came across a large tractor towing an even larger gubbins that wanted to turn left off a road up a junction, with a number of houses on the right of the road, outside of which the residents had all parked, thus narrowing the road right along the section in which the junction is central. In trying to get as far right as possible, to get his tractor + gubbins 'round into the narrow entrance to the junction road, the gubbins had swiped one or more parked cars, not to mention demolished a flower pot or three outside the houses.

Now, this road with its junction is habitually traversed by large tractors with gubbin,s as the village is in the middle of extensive farmland to all sides. But the residents of them houses can't be bothered to walk a few yards to their front doors, instead wishing to park on their doorstep. Now they have been tractor-bit i' the pride&joy. There will no doubt be moaning, especially when the P&J owners spot their crushed plant pots an' all!

The tractor driver had got out and was knocking on all their doors, no doubt to say sorry; but get your bluddy cars out of the road.

Cugel


Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
reohn2
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Joined: 26 Jun 2009, 8:21pm

Re: School Run

Post by reohn2 »

Cugel
Whilst I sympathise with the tractor driver and think the car parkers are a bunch of idle swines(or the the Swiss Alpine equivelant),would it not have been better if s/he'd knocked on the doors before scraping cars and knocking over plant pot,or is s/he a tractor driver with a rather wry sense of Welsh humour?
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: School Run

Post by pwa »

Psamathe wrote:Near me it's quite horrendous. Not only for cyclists but also driving a car.

Apart from the pulling out without looking, opening doors without looking, walking out without looking, etc., etc. one school near me is on a fairly tight bend, 2 way road. Normally when driving the bend is no issue because 2 cars or car with oncoming lorry, etc. can pass without problems. But school run drivers park illegally on the bend making drivers from on direction pull out onto the opposite side of the road whilst vehicles coming the other way can't see any issues and it's really dangerous and really illegal.

I've e-mailed the school about this and got back a "we've tried to stop it but it didn't stop it" - which angered me as quite pathetic. My next e-mail pointed out e.g. get local Police Officer to visit at 15:00 and issue tickets to every illegally parked car (and after 3 days there would no longer be an issue) or send out a teacher with a smartphone and take photos of illegally parked cars and when a parent asks what they are doing say "they are being submitted to the Police as you are illegally parked" and work will soon get round and people will stop. I identified loads of things they could do .... but nothing done, problem continues and school seems unmotivated to even recognise the danger they are creating.

I had to drive out through a local one yesterday and parent standing in roadside door then pushing door fully open just as I was alongside (I was in a car) - but they did give me time to swerve (if you can call it swerve at 10'ish mph).

Ian


Teachers are paid to do teaching duties, not patrol the streets. If you feel so strongly about it, you patrol the street and take photos to submit to the police.
Psamathe
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Re: School Run

Post by Psamathe »

pwa wrote:
Psamathe wrote:Near me it's quite horrendous. Not only for cyclists but also driving a car.

Apart from the pulling out without looking, opening doors without looking, walking out without looking, etc., etc. one school near me is on a fairly tight bend, 2 way road. Normally when driving the bend is no issue because 2 cars or car with oncoming lorry, etc. can pass without problems. But school run drivers park illegally on the bend making drivers from on direction pull out onto the opposite side of the road whilst vehicles coming the other way can't see any issues and it's really dangerous and really illegal.

I've e-mailed the school about this and got back a "we've tried to stop it but it didn't stop it" - which angered me as quite pathetic. My next e-mail pointed out e.g. get local Police Officer to visit at 15:00 and issue tickets to every illegally parked car (and after 3 days there would no longer be an issue) or send out a teacher with a smartphone and take photos of illegally parked cars and when a parent asks what they are doing say "they are being submitted to the Police as you are illegally parked" and work will soon get round and people will stop. I identified loads of things they could do .... but nothing done, problem continues and school seems unmotivated to even recognise the danger they are creating.

I had to drive out through a local one yesterday and parent standing in roadside door then pushing door fully open just as I was alongside (I was in a car) - but they did give me time to swerve (if you can call it swerve at 10'ish mph).

Ian


Teachers are paid to do teaching duties, not patrol the streets. If you feel so strongly about it, you patrol the street and take photos to submit to the police.

I thought teachers had a range of duties e.g. supervising playtime, making sure that kids arriving by bike are wearing helmets (in some rather silly schools), etc. The school has a degree of responsibility for issues it causes. It has inadequate facilities for the number of people it has collecting kids. So I believe it needs to address those issues or to provide adequate facilities (legal parking, off-road) such that it does not cause a public nuisance.

Ian
Mike Sales
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Re: School Run

Post by Mike Sales »

I cannot help thinking that if teachers don't have responsibility for children wearing cycle helmets on their way to school, and I would argue that they don't, then they don't have responsibility for how their parents drive on the way either.
Traffic policing is the concern of the police.
I know they do not do their job very well, but that is no reason for teachers to have to take over. Perhaps a PCSO would be better than the cardboard cut out coppers I have seen policing the school run passively.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
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Cugel
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Re: School Run

Post by Cugel »

reohn2 wrote:Cugel
Whilst I sympathise with the tractor driver and think the car parkers are a bunch of idle swines(or the the Swiss Alpine equivelant),would it not have been better if s/he'd knocked on the doors before scraping cars and knocking over plant pot,or is s/he a tractor driver with a rather wry sense of Welsh humour?


One can never be sure just how waggish the tractor drivers are. Many are jolly lads keen to stop and talk to cyclists, the ensuing conversations often revealing just how arcane (and extensive) is their Welsh sense of humour.

However, this tractor man merely misjudged the width of his rear gubbins. Or rather, he was caught out by a bit of it poking out sideways more than usual as he attempted the tight left turn after first moving as far right as he thought was safe. We'd stopped behind him and could watch the whole sequence of events.

I suppose he could have stopped, got out, knocked on all the doors, eventually found the car parkers and eventually got them to move. It would have been midnight by then. As we went by the tractor (now stuck in the middle of the road & junction) the driver was obtaining some pen & paper from a lad up the road he seemed to know, to write little billet doux for posting his sorries on. :-)

Cugel.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: School Run

Post by pwa »

Psamathe wrote:
pwa wrote:
Psamathe wrote:Near me it's quite horrendous. Not only for cyclists but also driving a car.

Apart from the pulling out without looking, opening doors without looking, walking out without looking, etc., etc. one school near me is on a fairly tight bend, 2 way road. Normally when driving the bend is no issue because 2 cars or car with oncoming lorry, etc. can pass without problems. But school run drivers park illegally on the bend making drivers from on direction pull out onto the opposite side of the road whilst vehicles coming the other way can't see any issues and it's really dangerous and really illegal.

I've e-mailed the school about this and got back a "we've tried to stop it but it didn't stop it" - which angered me as quite pathetic. My next e-mail pointed out e.g. get local Police Officer to visit at 15:00 and issue tickets to every illegally parked car (and after 3 days there would no longer be an issue) or send out a teacher with a smartphone and take photos of illegally parked cars and when a parent asks what they are doing say "they are being submitted to the Police as you are illegally parked" and work will soon get round and people will stop. I identified loads of things they could do .... but nothing done, problem continues and school seems unmotivated to even recognise the danger they are creating.

I had to drive out through a local one yesterday and parent standing in roadside door then pushing door fully open just as I was alongside (I was in a car) - but they did give me time to swerve (if you can call it swerve at 10'ish mph).

Ian


Teachers are paid to do teaching duties, not patrol the streets. If you feel so strongly about it, you patrol the street and take photos to submit to the police.

I thought teachers had a range of duties e.g. supervising playtime, making sure that kids arriving by bike are wearing helmets (in some rather silly schools), etc. The school has a degree of responsibility for issues it causes. It has inadequate facilities for the number of people it has collecting kids. So I believe it needs to address those issues or to provide adequate facilities (legal parking, off-road) such that it does not cause a public nuisance.

Ian


It is debatable what a school's responsibilities are beyond its gates. As far as I am aware it is the responsibility of the police and traffic wardens to enforce good driver behaviour outside the school. If you want teachers to become traffic wardens you need to ask them if they are happy to do that, then discuss the pay rise that comes with this new job description. If you feel the picking up area is too small (they often are) go and talk to the local authority that designed and constructed the school, not the teachers who had no say in how the place was laid out.

There is a primary school around the corner from us and during picking up or dropping off times, with all the buses and cars, I avoid cycling or driving that way. I go a slightly longer way to avoid the congestion.
hemo
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Location: West Sussex

Re: School Run

Post by hemo »

I like it :lol: .
Sounds like tractor driver 2 may be 3 or 4, car owners nil.
Tangled Metal
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Re: School Run

Post by Tangled Metal »

Had a builder's merchant's truck hit our car once. They were taking a bend with the passenger directing three driver. It was all watched by my partner from a downstairs window. She couldn't react in time to stop them doing it. The passenger directed the driver straight into our car. Obvious that was going to happen.

Turns out the passenger was the assistant manager so the branch manager asked to keep it out if the insurance companies. Not a chance, we informed our insurers. They arranged for a local body work shop to collect and hire car of equivalent class to be dropped off, it was actually a bigger SUV costing a lot to hire. They found out the cost of repair was above their slush fund so insurance company, their insurer, got involved. Well they did lift the car onto two wheels so kind of obvious it caused a lot of damage.

IME those who drive for a living tend to take care of how they drive. There's always exceptions though. I think farmers and farm workers in tractors are likely to be among them. But apart from that drivers tend to try and get through gaps that perhaps not wise to try. In our case they could knock on a few doors and at least two cars on the bend would have been moved allowing clear access through. Arrogance of Male drivers perhaps?
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Cugel
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Re: School Run

Post by Cugel »

Tangled Metal wrote:Had a builder's merchant's truck hit our car once. They were taking a bend with the passenger directing three driver. It was all watched by my partner from a downstairs window. She couldn't react in time to stop them doing it. The passenger directed the driver straight into our car. Obvious that was going to happen.

Turns out the passenger was the assistant manager so the branch manager asked to keep it out if the insurance companies. Not a chance, we informed our insurers. They arranged for a local body work shop to collect and hire car of equivalent class to be dropped off, it was actually a bigger SUV costing a lot to hire. They found out the cost of repair was above their slush fund so insurance company, their insurer, got involved. Well they did lift the car onto two wheels so kind of obvious it caused a lot of damage.

IME those who drive for a living tend to take care of how they drive. There's always exceptions though. I think farmers and farm workers in tractors are likely to be among them. But apart from that drivers tend to try and get through gaps that perhaps not wise to try. In our case they could knock on a few doors and at least two cars on the bend would have been moved allowing clear access through. Arrogance of Male drivers perhaps?


Arrogance of car parkers cluttering up the public highways with their tin litter. :-)

Cugel, wondering how much a large tractor & gubbins costs to hire.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Postboxer
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Joined: 24 Jul 2013, 5:19pm

Re: School Run

Post by Postboxer »

I'm sure when I used to work for my Dad on his farm, people used to move their cars out into the road to try to stop us driving along it to get to our fields, this was in a small, rural village, surrounded by nothing but farmland, but also an area noted for people moving to from the busy conurbations of West Yorkshire. I'd drive through in the morning, the cars would be on the driveways, the next time, they'd be at the roadside, then the next time the cars would have moved along the road to be opposite each other, then as they learnt that I was still going to drive through, close to their cars, they would all move back onto the driveways again. Of course, it could just be people going out somewhere in the morning but why not use your driveway on your return and why would they then move along the road a little bit.

My kids school the parking isn't great but it's better than the one we pass on the way where everyone parks on the pavements, hardly anyone seems to indicate to park nor to pull out, as it's on a bus route and causes a long stretch to be effectively one lane, people's observational skills don't seem to extend to seeing if they can actually clear the far end of the narrow section, including just ploughing onward into it when there is a bus coming slowly the other way past all the other drivers who have done the same.

If you turn up late at my kids school, you have to wait in the office til 9.15 until they're allowed in, I think any kids getting out of illegally parked cars should have to do the same, along with their parents. I don't know how to police this though as you would have to tell the parents before they drove off, or mark them late and send letters home. It wouldn't be fair if one child gets marked late who got there earlier but parked properly further away but a child arriving later but jumping out of a car parked on the zig-zags or pavement got marked as arriving on time.

What doesn't help this is despite the school often sending messages to parents asking them to not park on the zig-zags or block driveways, they are happy to accept deliveries from large vehicles parked on the same zig-zags at school times and also the school minibus is sometimes on there and even larger coaches before and after school trips.

They also have parking attendants occasionally but they turn up early in high-viz and stand there in full view at the problem area, rather than turning up in the middle and ticketing people. I once saw one of them actually stood a bit further away on the opposite side of the road and he seemed to be dishing out more tickets. It's also alarming how close some drivers will get to parking on the pavement right next to the high-viz parking attendants before noticing them. Get the parking attendants to turn up in the middle, issue some tickets, tell the school, the school could then send out a message saying x number of tickets were given out this morning and they'll be back. Then people might actually take notice rather than them parking properly on the days they can see the parking attendants there but reverting to 'normal' the next day. It does seem to be contagious, 'everyone else does it so it must be ok'.

My sister sent her two boys to a school in the USA for a day in the middle of their holiday there, they had some weird traffic light parking bay system where everyone would queue, then be let in in batches to park and let the kids get out and out of the way, then the cars would exit and the next lot come in, seems a bit excessive to me. Then again it's not surprising, I once saw a documentary where a child got a lift to the bus stop that was in front of the house next door.
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: School Run

Post by pwa »

I don't actually mind the way the road outside our local primary school gets clogged with school buses and cars each morning. There is an alternative way round, so anyone in a hurry can get past with a small detour, and the school run drivers seem careful and, as far as I can tell, safe. Traffic seems to cede priority to people on foot. And ten minutes later the road is clear again.

This is on a side road in a village, so perhaps it is that "community" thing where parents are looking out for other people's children as well as their own.
Tangled Metal
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Joined: 13 Feb 2015, 8:32pm

Re: School Run

Post by Tangled Metal »

Cugel wrote:
Tangled Metal wrote:Had a builder's merchant's truck hit our car once. They were taking a bend with the passenger directing three driver. It was all watched by my partner from a downstairs window. She couldn't react in time to stop them doing it. The passenger directed the driver straight into our car. Obvious that was going to happen.

Turns out the passenger was the assistant manager so the branch manager asked to keep it out if the insurance companies. Not a chance, we informed our insurers. They arranged for a local body work shop to collect and hire car of equivalent class to be dropped off, it was actually a bigger SUV costing a lot to hire. They found out the cost of repair was above their slush fund so insurance company, their insurer, got involved. Well they did lift the car onto two wheels so kind of obvious it caused a lot of damage.

IME those who drive for a living tend to take care of how they drive. There's always exceptions though. I think farmers and farm workers in tractors are likely to be among them. But apart from that drivers tend to try and get through gaps that perhaps not wise to try. In our case they could knock on a few doors and at least two cars on the bend would have been moved allowing clear access through. Arrogance of Male drivers perhaps?


Arrogance of car parkers cluttering up the public highways with their tin litter. :-)

Cugel, wondering how much a large tractor & gubbins costs to hire.

I just wished the car had been parked the other way round. It had a scratch from being hit before but no one to pay for it. I'd have got it fixed at the same time on merchants bill
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Cugel
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Re: School Run

Post by Cugel »

Tangled Metal wrote:
Cugel wrote:
Tangled Metal wrote:Had a builder's merchant's truck hit our car once. They were taking a bend with the passenger directing three driver. It was all watched by my partner from a downstairs window. She couldn't react in time to stop them doing it. The passenger directed the driver straight into our car. Obvious that was going to happen.

Turns out the passenger was the assistant manager so the branch manager asked to keep it out if the insurance companies. Not a chance, we informed our insurers. They arranged for a local body work shop to collect and hire car of equivalent class to be dropped off, it was actually a bigger SUV costing a lot to hire. They found out the cost of repair was above their slush fund so insurance company, their insurer, got involved. Well they did lift the car onto two wheels so kind of obvious it caused a lot of damage.

IME those who drive for a living tend to take care of how they drive. There's always exceptions though. I think farmers and farm workers in tractors are likely to be among them. But apart from that drivers tend to try and get through gaps that perhaps not wise to try. In our case they could knock on a few doors and at least two cars on the bend would have been moved allowing clear access through. Arrogance of Male drivers perhaps?


Arrogance of car parkers cluttering up the public highways with their tin litter. :-)

Cugel, wondering how much a large tractor & gubbins costs to hire.

I just wished the car had been parked the other way round. It had a scratch from being hit before but no one to pay for it. I'd have got it fixed at the same time on merchants bill


You may have invented a new tekneek for milking the insurers. I can never decide if this is a good thing or a bad. I know they milk us but do two wrong milkings make a right cheese? Getting dosh from an insurance company is often said to be more like getting blood from a stone.

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
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