Friday, 13 October 2023
Right up to the desks
Imagine a secondary school where local streets are temporarily clogged with cars every school morning and afternoon. So clogged that sometimes local people cannot drive onto their own driveway until pupil delivery and collection have dissipated.
It's nowhere near as bad where we are, but it is for some people we know. The deputy head of the school once visited them and said -
"They would drive right up to the desks if they could."
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There is a narrow lane near here, which has the main entrance to a private school half-way down.
A few years ago, I used to meet up with a frind who lived in the grounds, and soon discovered that wing-mirrors are disposable, ditches are levelled out easily, so that water freezes all over the road, and the farmers have no need to cut the hedges, as the 4 x 4s do the job admirably...
May I recommend, dear Blogger, a daily - or perhaps weekly - contest for the best find of twaddle? For today/this week I offer:
"your insightful delineation of the temporal attractiveness of cash captures the broader oscillations inherent in the financial cycles and sub-cycles of the Financial Entropy." Beat that!
The wealthier areas seem to be the worst. There's nothing scarier than a stressy middle-class mum trying to reverse a huge 4WD while drinking a large latte and explaining on the phone why she's running late for her meditation class.
Scrobs - so that's why so many 4x4s are being stolen, we hear on the news. People in Rumania and Pakistan want to cut their hedges!
Scrobs - I don't know how wing-mirrors survive round here. Although I saw one with bits handing off it the other day.
dearieme - good idea, I have a blog post ready to go.
Sam - ah, you see them as well. They are often trying to do a three point turn too.
Tammly - they possibly see it as a form of conspicuous consumption. "I don't have a hedge trimmer, but I do have this."
"The wealthier areas seem to be the worst"
I wouldn't class my road as a "wealthy" area, but that doesn't stop us suffering inconsiderate school parking!
When our firstborn started primary school everyone seemed to take their children to school by bike. Pleasant early September weather of course. (Our domestic division of labour meant that delivering the bairn was my job, collection was my beloved's.)
After the first cold morning it was only the hardy middle class that carried on cycling: yer proletarian mums rolled up in bangers.
We must have discussed letting the bairn walk to school on her own: we both had at that age. But we didn't. Probably worried as much by the traffic as by child-snatchers? It's hard to know your own motives sometimes.
Or: I wonder whether the school had a policy forbidding the children arriving on their own. They certainly had a policy that the children mustn't cycle to school on their own until age whatever and the gaining of a cycling proficiency badge. This in a city where most of the nippers had been cycling since they were three or four. Teachers, eh?
Dave - ours isn't too bad. We've had people park across the drive, but it's rare.
dearieme - looking back recently, Mrs H and I were surprised how early we let our kids go to school on their own. Schools do now seem to have policies about children arriving and departing on their own. Round here I think they are supposed to be escorted until the last year of junior school.
This topic is not new. I've been retired from the Police over 15 years now, and my best PC colleagues and I were constantly sent down to schools because of shocking parking. Our Inspector tried all sorts, from putting articles in the local papers (parents obviously couldn't read), to personal advice at the scene (totally ignored). We even persuaded the council to put up signs that the roads to some schools were closed, apart from residents, during certain hours (completely ignored). There were too many schools to have officers outside each school to stop parents even stopping to drop off their previous offspring though we tried that on a rotating basis (being called a Nazi and KGB within minutes of each other was quite illuminating). In the end, we just issued tickets for parking on zebra crossings, obstruction, double parking, etc (I even issued a ticket, unbeknowingly, to a senior Police officer, dropping off his 17 year old son on his way to work, and refused to cancel it, which did wonders for my promotion prospects!). This problem is going to be like the infestation of bed bugs and the welcoming of the dinghy invaders from France. No one has any idea how to stop it.
Penseivat
beat PCs, not best PCs (damn autocorrect). The best PCs were always unavailable.
Penseivat
Penseivat - that's very interesting. I'm amazed that parents didn't make at least some response to police action, but relatives of ours say the police haven't been able to do anything where they are. They say that parents will even stop in the middle of a busy road, fling open the car doors and let the kids out, ignoring other traffic.
A small estate behind our local (very good) primary school is plagued with inconsiderate parking, one resident a couple of years ago got so frustrated at not being able to get out of her drive and was told by the blocker they 'would only be ten minutes', that the following day when the same thing happened the resident threw a flower pot and contents through the side window of the parked car, not a word was spoken but the car did move.
Wiggia - it's amazing, blockers wouldn't put up with their own drives being blocked. Or maybe blockers don't have drives.
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