Sorry, need to rant about traffic

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You know, what this government needs to do if they want to slash congestion and pollution in towns and cities - get an integrated school run transport policy! Sod the adults, its the kids that cause the problems! :bang:

Needless to say I dont mean the kids literally, I refer to the parents that insist on driving their precious cherubs everywhere and especially to and from school. Normally I leave for work at 7am in order to avoid the worse of the carnage. We live in leafy nth london but our business is in Kentish town, a journey of some 7 or so miles heading towards the city. By leaving at 7am I can be there in 25 mins. For every 5 mins after 7 that I leave, the journey takes an extra 10 minutes, so much so that leaving at 8am can often mean not arriving until 9.15!

Today I decided to experiment, the schools are out for summer so I left at 8am - by 8.30 I was making coffee in the kitchen at work!

I mean FFS, why can't they WALK! It would cut childhood obesity dramatically, reduce congestion and pollution and have a significant impact on road rage too I imagine! I walked both my kids to school daily when they were younger even though for a few years the school was nearly 2 miles away. WHAT is it with these people?!?! :bat: As a parent I appreciate there are times when a car journey is necessary but in general they are NOT!

Yes, I appreciate many workers will currently be on holiday atm, which also reduces traffic, but the difference is very significant even during the less popular school holiday periods such as Oct and Feb half terms when fewer people take holidays.

Get off the road, let the people that need to get to work miles away actually use their cars and give your kids a better lifestyle! :rules:


Ok, sorry, rant over..... :D
 
Totally and utterly agree.

I for one would be happy for a proportion of my tax to be spent building a system of yellow busses like those in the US.

But then thanks to the scare mongering of this governement over the last decade we now live in a society where the little darlings have to be watched 24/7 or "the nasty man might get them!"
 
LadyLens said:
our business is in Kentish town, a journey of some 7 or so miles
SNIP
Get off the road, let the people that need to get to work miles away actually use their cars and give your kids a better lifestyle! :rules:
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Follow your own advice!, it's only 7 miles you can walk it in less time than it takes to drive = one less car on the road. :)
 
Steep, you can walk 7 miles in 30 minutes, with a bag/laptop etc?

Blimey, I recon you should be off to Beijing!
 
they cant walk because their little preciousnesses will 100% be kidnapped by a pedophile. maybe one of those immigrants might get them! or knifed by a drug dealer

thats why they have to go to school in a rangerover (where they are more likely to get killed when the mum flips it over whilst driving around a round about the wrong way and trying to fix the dvd players in the back)
 
The day I can walk 7 miles in 25 minutes will be the day I am probably also pushing up daisies. I dont use the car for short journeys, and as my job involves cars, having one around is usually advantageous. This is not a dig at cars in general, only those that are used for short journeys that are unnecessary.
 
for the most part I agree. My kids schools, are about a 20 minute walk away.
Ive signed them both up for the walking bus in september, and even offered myself as a volunteer for it too.

However, my son has only just left nursery (at a different school to the one our daughter goes to).
So that's two different schools.
On days when I need the car (for example when I take my mum and gran shopping), I may need to drop my wife off at work, to start at 9am. My daughter off at school, to start at 9am, and my son at nursery at 9am. Even Linford Christie in his heydey couldn't do that on foot ;)

Some times car journeys ARE necessary for many parents, especially when you have it where both parents are full time workers (which is sometimes another bugbear of mine but thats for another thread).

I do agree though that many parents overuse the car to take their kids to school. Hell I've done it a few times, when it's been bucketing down, or I've been late etc.

The problem we face with congestion, isn't that too many parents are doing the school run in cars.

It's the fact that too many people own too many cars. How many households do you know of with more than one car? Our neighbour has three.

We need to start restricting cars like China do with kids. Start *sharing* cars in households.
It's not uncommon for households now, where mum has a car, dad has a car, son has a car, and sometimes daughter does too...

It's that what's causing the problem, there are just way too many cars on the road, and no b****r shares.
 
I think i would rather drive them knowing they are safe and will get to school on time. Instead of me being all up tight about anyone trying to take one of my kids. I wouldn't let them out my sight until they got in the school gates.

Or even have them home tutored :)
 
For my Journey to work, the blame for congestion can only be public transport, i.e buses.
On the A1306 (the old A13) through Rainham and Dagenham, they have turned the left hand lane of the dual carriageway into bus lanes, yet there are not that many buses that actually use it even at peak times. Also alot of bus stops which were once a layby have been filled in so the buses now stop in the road, blocking the flow of traffic. Some bus stops are too close together, we have two within 100yds of each other.
Oh and the bus drivers figure they always have the right of way even when driving on the wrong side of the road to overtake parked cars.
I hate buses.
 
Techno-Geek said:
I think i would rather drive them knowing they are safe and will get to school on time. Instead of me being all up tight about anyone trying to take one of my kids. I wouldn't let them out my sight until they got in the school gates.

Or even have them home tutored :)
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:bonk: thats exactly the problem! Surely getting the to school on time is parental responsibilty easily achieved by walking, in fact easier than driving because you are probably not going to get caught up behind the range rover that mega mum has just fliped over whilst driving around a round about the wrong way and trying to fix the dvd players in the back!


Marcel - I agree that some journeys are necessary and that car sharing is a vastly under-used resource, but the imapct of teh school run is so marked that its time more was done - the idea of the US style yellow buses is a very good one imo.
 
nilagin said:
Oh and the bus drivers figure they always have the right of way even when driving on the wrong side of the road to overtake parked cars.
I hate buses.
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They do have right of way though don't they?
 
I remember when I was at secondary school, a lot of the parent in my village elected to have us schooled out of the catchment area. The school in question being 20 odd miles away. Now there was no support for school buses from the local authority (rightly so) so all the parents clubbed together and formed a co-operative which hired a school bus every morning. It worked perfectly. All the kids from around the village walked to a designated pick up point (up to a mile) and we had 1 single bus taking everyone to school as opposed to 30-40 cars driving a 40 mile round trip!

Why is that so hard to organise these days? Oh yes I forgot, litigiousness!
 
Steep said:
They do have right of way though don't they?
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No they dont have right of way-you should give way to them when moving off not when in a meerting situation. To keep the transport free flowing.

Im a driving instructor-get me out of here. LOL
 
Steep said:
They do have right of way though don't they?
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Unfortunately so when pulling out. Most people forget this. BUT in our defence buses sure do push that "right of way" to the limit!
 
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I was at work 45mins earlier than normal yesterday, because of no school traffic!

I used to walk a mile to school with very heavy bags, always used to bug me that they had PE and cooking on the same day.......(indoor and outdoor kit for PE and cooking for stupid stuff like vegetable soup so you had to carry several pounds of vegetables and then have to try and get the stupid soup home again after playing hockey for an hour! :lol:)

If I could do it I am sure kids today can manage it!

my rant over!
 
LadyLens said:
:bonk: thats exactly the problem! Surely getting the to school on time is parental responsibilty easily achieved by walking, in fact easier than driving because you are probably not going to get caught up behind the range rover that mega mum has just fliped over whilst driving around a round about the wrong way and trying to fix the dvd players in the back!
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I suppose i would like walk if it was close enough, couldn't do two miles i don't think.
 
When I was in school, if you got dropped off in a car, you got beaten up.

You walked to school, simple as that. If you lived to far to walk, you biked.

My eldest is now in school (not literally now as its hols) and I walk him, along with his 3 year old brother, the 1 and a half mile journey. Then me and the youngest do the 1 and a half miles back, where I jump on the bicyle and tow youngest to nursey on the tag along. Bloody brilliant things they are !!

On that 1 and a half mile walk to school, I pass several houses where I see kids from the same class, getting in cars and being driven to school. I bite my toungue each time I walk past. FFS some of them live less than 5 mins walk away. and just to clarify, the mums do NOT carry straight on to work because on my walk back the cars are back in the drives.

2 days of the week, I work. Its about 6 miles away, and I cycle. I couldnt drive if I wanted to because we only have 1 car and my wife needs that for her work, being about 30 miles away. I dont mind though and actually enjoy it, plus its quicker because of the short cuts I can take.

In short, LL, I whole heartidly agree and it also drives (no pun intended) me mad. So much so that I think if one of the mums crosses me in the playground, I think I might simply explode....

BB
 
We are "blessed" with many schools of different age groups around us
The furthest you would have to walk would be a mile to any school.
I went into town today ( working) just before 9am and I pass 3 schools on route.
on a school day the mile journey takes around 20-25 minutes.
today I did it in 5
Now someone please explain to me how its not the school traffic that clogs the roads
 
Our school run is about 6miles away, there are no buses. An then my wife takes our toddler to the nursery, about 3 more miles.

Whilst I drive 35miles to work and can take 90minutes to do it because of roadworks on the motorway, not THATS the real problem.

I'm resolving it by selling the car and doing my motorbike test.
 
AND ANOTHER THING, RELATED TO TRAFFIC AND SCHOOL RUNS. :annoyed:

I'M USING CAPITALS TO GET ACROSS THE FACT THAT I'M SLIGHTLY "ANNOYED" AT THIS.

ON MY WALK TO SCHOOL, I HAVE TO CROSS AT A CROSSROADS, ONE CORNER OF WHICH IS OCCUPIED BY A "CO-OP"

WHY ON EARTH DO PEOPLE THINK ITS OK TO PARK RIGHT ON THE CORNERS OF CROSSROADS. BLOCKING ALL VIEW OF ANY ON-COMMING TRAFFIC. :bang::bang: MAKING IT VERY VERY HARD AS A PEDESTRIAN, TO CROSS OVER.

I SAY ITS RELATED AS ITS USUALLY A MUM WHO HAS NIPPED INTO THE SHOP BEFORE TAKING HER CHILD TO SCHOOL. (WHOM SHE USUALLY LEAVES IN THE CAR, ALONE) :cuckoo:

DRIVES ME BLOODY MAD IT DOES, ON BOTH COUNTS !!!!
 
BB, rightly so. People with kids seem to think these things are acceptable. But then shouldn't there be parent and child only parking everywhere? LOL

*tongue very fimly in cheek*
 
matty,

It's amazing isn't it? And while I'll admit that modern cars are, on average, larger than those 10 or 20 years ago, I still can't see where carelessness became acceptable just because one has children?

But hey, this is an entirely seperate thread all on its own!
 
I don't know, it's driving related so it can go here :)

My car is actually too big to fit in a single space at a lot of car parks (too long) so I usually park right towards the back so as not to cause inconvenience to others... maybe people with kids could do the same :shrug:
 
And then navigate round the loonies that drive round the car park, with small children :cuckoo:
That makes sense ;)
 
Marcel said:
And then navigate round the loonies that drive round the car park, with small children :cuckoo:
That makes sense ;)
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Still can't see the issue.. Most car parks now have some form of pedestrian walkway and zebra crossings etc.

They should also have a traffic management system in place.
 
mattyh said:
I often wonder how my mum and dad coped without parent & child parking spaces, they never did any damage to anyone's car ;)
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Not that they told you, or your child mind would notice.

I'm not blaming anyone else, I'm not the one with the problem, I'll park anywhere, and have yet to damage anyone else's car, but I've seen it happen, and can understand how it can happen also.

It's one of those issues that until you've been there and done it, you've no idea what its like.
 
Sgt_Major said:
Not that they told you, or your child mind would notice.

I'm not blaming anyone else, I'm not the one with the problem, I'll park anywhere, and have yet to damage anyone else's car, but I've seen it happen, and can understand how it can happen also.

It's one of those issues that until you've been there and done it, you've no idea what its like.
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My parents would've left a note if there was no one to speak to about the damage.

Yes it happens, it's happened to me when I was sitting in my car. Thats life, if you park in a car park you risk getting your car damaged and some ****** driving off. The fact of the matter is, parents should take responsibility for their kids whacking the doors of their car against someone elses. I know they don't (for various reasons), but thats another topic altogether.
 
That's just it though, I've seen it happen SOOO many times and when I've challenged said "role model" about leaving a note for the owner of the other car it's as If I'm from the planet ZOB!

It's not even considered that THEY did it, just that the other person dare own a car and park it near them. Oh sorry, park it in a space near where they might choose to park.

Or is this just another example of the "look after 1" society we live in today?
 
Why do you automatically assume parents arent watching the kids?

Trying to haul a 1.5 - 2st kid out of a car puts you seriously off balance, and its easy to stumble, or trying to get same kid out, and into a buggy that barely fits between the spaces in normal parking, and then get your 6yr old out as well. It's a lot to do in a very small space.
 
Ah! Role models!

I saw a mother with a small child at a pelican crossing once. The woman was explaining to the child about how 'we have to wait until the red man changes to the green man, then we can cross'.

While she was waiting for the red man to change to the green man, the road became empty, so she said to the child 'come on, quick, let's cross', to which the child said ' but mummy, it's still the red man!'

...to which the mother said 'don't be silly, come on!' and proceeded to drag the child across the road......

:cuckoo:
 
mattyh said:
Then it'd be an accident and you should either contact the owner, or leave your contact details for the purposes of an insurance claim.

park further away in a space that doesn't have another car next to it, then you'd have plenty of room
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I'm not disputing the contact the owner thing. I've never had to, but I would if I did damage it.

What I'm saying is cutting others a little slack and helping them out, be that as simple as wider spaces designed to allow parents a little more room to manoeuvre the necessities associated with kids.

I'm not demanding spaces right beside the door, just with a bit more space. Having said that, make all the spaces wider and then there's no need for 'special' parking.

:naughty:
 
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