Walking my grandkid to/from school, it absolutely floors me how many dangerous drivers there are around kids.
In a matter of maybe 10 minutes, I’ve witnessed:
- at least a dozen cars illegal parked. It’s not the parking that bothers me, but the fact that these cars are often parked on turns or just before intersections, making it impossible for other drivers to see small kids.
- Several people not stopping at stop signs, including at the exit of the school parking lot.
- One car, who completely blew through a stop sign at the front of the school, made a left turn and nearly hit a guy walking his kid. The driver didn’t even slow down.
- Super fucking huge pickup trucks parked in the school parking lot, but their long ass hangs well over the sidewalk near the kindergarden area, leaving very little space to use the sidewalk.
- Speeding. Obviously, you have to have speeding in school zones, right?
This happens every day, during drop off and pick up. I was told that bylaw were “cracking down”, but no, they aren’t. If they were, our municipality would generate $5000 in fines each and every day at every school.
The other day, I rode my bike past another school as kids were getting out. Not only was their massive parking lot completely full, but they had blocked the bike trail (WITH PYLONS) to make space for more cars. Then as I entered onto the road, cars were illegally parked along the road and on a bridge for a like 100m. Making it extremely difficult and dangerous to cross because they blocked visibility for me and other drivers on the road.
I asked the cross guard if these students all lived out of town, requiring every parent to drive them home; he obviously didn’t get my joke.
Seriously, fuck cars. All of them!
I live in a suburban part of a medium sized US city. There is a school nearby that has similar problems.
- situated on a 2 lane collector road with bike lanes
- lots of no parking signs -they set up a bunch of cones and have crossing guards all around
- there are school zone flashers
Despite All This
- people park in doubled up bike lane/no parking area all the time and the way the cones are set up encourages it
- people swing their doors open into traffic and cross wherever they want
- during off times, the school has a sign forbidding use of their parking lot so people park in the bike lanes
Luckily, the speed limit is only 30 so when school is in letting out I take the lane and anyone that doesn’t like it can choke on a bottle of tire sealant.
My city is generally responsive when enough people comment on something and in general, you are likely to get a sentence or two back no matter what you comment on. I’m afraid to comment on this because the people picking up their kids in cars outnumber the cyclists and I forsee the school holding firm on closing their lot and they’ll probably quote something stupid like liability or security. Is it not also a liability if a kid steps out from behind a parked car and gets squished by an F350 Crew Cab Mega Hemi Coal Roaler? In any case, I think the more likely outcome would be accommodating the cars and moving the bikes into the road with sharrows or doing something like that.
If I was in charge, I’d put a speed table at each end of the school zone, narrow all crosswalks to the minimum acceptable distance and put the bike lanes behind a 6inch wide curb to make it more obvious that you cannot park there. I also want these lifted Ford Excursion drivers to watch us casually pedal past the traffic jam they create every single day. I’d force the school to open their lot where capacity permits and I’d start ticketing the shit out of anyone who stows up traffic in the area or parks where it is not allowed. There is a trail just south of the school that leads to a grocery store maybe 1/4 mile away. That’s where the car drivers could best pick up their kids. All the tickets should easily pay for the speed tables and upgrading the bike lanes and walking paths.
It’s also a problem that’s getting worse. When I was in school in the 2000s, like 80% of the kids took the bus and half of the remaining ones (like me) came by bike. Now my niece goes to the same school and she’s one of very few kids still taking the bus there. The schoolyard turns into a chaotic mess of SUVs every morning. I guess it goes hand in hand with helicopter parenting becoming normalized.
Yeah, cycling to elementary school on my own was one of my favorite childhood memories.
Unfortunately, nobody told me it was illegal to ride on the sidewalk, so I didn’t realize I was being an asshole until I was a teenager.
You weren’t being an asshole, you were breaking an unjust law. You were a hero, like Robin Hood.
Nah, bicycles belong on roads.
Yes, after cars are banned. Bicycles, especially bicycles carrying children, are allowed on sidewalks until then.
Sidewalks are more dangerous for bicycles. Especially for children!
Cars can’t see you, and the accident rates are much higher for bicycles getting hit by cars when they ride on the sidewalk
IIRC in my area kids can legally ride on sidewalks which makes sense.
I guess if you like dead kids?
It also comes with cost of living growing to insane proportions. Fewer people can afford to live near their preferred school, some portion of which won’t ride the bus. More students living further away will tend to increase demand for transportation and the increasing length of the bus ride will worsen the ratio of car to bus riders. We can’t afford housing people near the resources they need to access these days.
With that said, I’ve seen the insane long line of cars waiting to enter a school and thought how glad I was not being in that line.
I drop off my kiddo in the morning because it is a 10 minute ride and is on my way to work while the bus is a 50 minute ride. She rides the bus home in the afternoon, because time is less of an issue.
All of the schools she has gone to have organized dropoff routes so everyone gets dropped off on the passenger side and it basicslly works like a drive through. Far safer than the convoluted mess that I got to watch as a bus rider when I was a kid.
Wish we had better public transportation so dedicated school buses were not so necessary.
@spankmonkey @PonyOfWar I caught a public bus to high school. To get an extra 20m of sleep I caught the one that didn’t go into the school and stopped on the wrong side of the road 1m before school started. To not be late we’d all walk out across the 4 lane road without looking. Cars will just stop.
After someone was rear ended the stop was removed.
After someone was rear ended the stop was removed.
Classic: punish the pedestrians and transit riders for car driver fuckups.
You drive your car to work? Sickening behaviour.
I’m not allowed to do that
For me this is not “fuck cars”, it’s more about “fuck stupid idiot trashy human beings”. But you know… If I was a kid i wouldn’t like to breath in car fumes, so maybe it is “fuck cars” after all
The idiot trashy human beings aren’t trying to kill my kids except when they’re in a car on the street we’re trying to cross, so I think getting rid of the cars would help tremendously.
The horrible trashy people also let their aggressive dogs out to roam unattended, leave unsecured firearms around the house, and other things that are not as frequently deadly, but just as stupid.
One thing at a time.
Au contraire, mon ami - they’re trying to kill anyone, it’s just a higher chance to get a kid in a school zone.
Source: the intersection down the road from me.
Well, that was just an example. We can ban the cars in more places than just school zones, I’m happy with that.
Hear me out: cars make people into trashy human beings
Depends on the car. Whopping big American Trump Trucks make people into trashy human beings, sure, but I’d like to think that putting around town in a classic mini doesn’t make me the devil. Certainly people don’t grin and point and wave when a Trump Truck goes past.
Sit in traffic long enough, and you’ll be driving like a trashy human
This is literally the “safe systems approach” encouraged to be adopted by DOTs. It assumes people will make mistakes, or otherwise just be “idiot trashy human beings” as a fundamental principal and then designs a transportation system from there. So you end up with separated, protected bike lakes, neckdowns, speed humps, and bollards out the ass.
An interesting thing I heard in a video. A thought experiment for your friends. 2 questions, in this order.
Is it rude to smoke around people who are eating in a restaurant? If so, why?
And then
Using that, is it rude to allow polluting cars near people eating food outside? Is the answer different from the first? If so, why?
Another almost guaranteed way of converting someone to the fuck cars mentality, ride a bike on the road and around traffic.
In relation to your post in the past I have worked as a parking CEO (civil enforcement officer - modern name for traffic warden)
We had to do school watches every day, covering different schools within our area and issuing fines to people that try to stop / park in areas around schools, particularly the yellow zig zags directly at the exits of the school.
The amount of abuse you got every time you were near a school, these idiots don’t seem to realise you are there to try and enforce rules that help keep their children safe as well as others. Parents are some of the most entitled pieces of shit, especially around schools.
Like you say as well, most of these fucks driving to pick up their little shits live less than 5 minutes by car from the school.
Fuck them and their cars!
I know people who DRIVE to the school 2 blocks away from their home! It is just baffling to me! Okay let’s say you just have to helicopter and go pick them up, you still have to DRIVE?! Just walk over! “Oh well it rains” _umbrella “but in winter” coats. Ffs it’s two blocks.
I don’t know anyone who drives two blocks to pick up their kids because I stopped hanging out with losers.
I live less than a half-mile from my kids’ school, and people ask why I walk them instead of driving… everyday I see people who live closer than I get in their cars and drive 2 blocks to pick up their kids!
Its madness I tell you
So many of them really just refuse to exist in public space. “The public” is full of evil undesirables, so let me go from my private space (home) to my private space (car) to go to my private space (work/school/venue) so i never have to exit in the scarrryyy public.
Even my more progressive best friends (a couple) refuse to go downtown because they can’t park directly in front of where they’re going, even though where they’d probably find a spot is still closer than your parking spot at Walmart or a grocery store - but I’m the crazy one for not prioritizing getting a new vehicle at all costs, sure.
Shit is bonkers.
my mum used to do that to make sure i actually went to
glorified baby sittingschool.Suppose she had two broken legs and didn’t own a wheelchair, then?
That’s honestly disgusting. Not only for the environment and public safety, but those missed opportunities to get some level of activity in your day are simply pissed away in a car.
Like, people are OK commuting by car for 1-3 hours a day… but a 20 or 30 minute walk with a dozen benfits? NO WAY!
It’s also part of the reason why so many of these kids (and their parents) are overweight.
We walk our kids to school pretty much every day, and I 100% agree.
Almost exactly three years ago, at a school about four miles away from ours, a driver killed a seven-year-old girl on her way home from school, and the very next morning a driver ignored the signal and cut me off as I was trying to walk my own kids across the street. In the next couple of months, a city ordinance meant to improve pedestrian safety was shot down by the state because it was “anti-car.” Since then, any efforts at traffic calming around schools has been slow-rolled and ignored at pretty much every opportunity. Car dismissal is prioritized at our kids’ school (we’ve actively had to go inside and pluck our kids out of the car line at the beginning of every school year so far because they don’t pay attention), bus dismissal gets second place, and this is the first year that the crossing guard has been there every day.
Literally the only positive thing that we’ve seen around our school is that they’ve reduced the road from two (very thin) lanes in each direction to only one; that has helped tremendously, but even just this morning a driver who wasn’t paying attention almost hit the crossing guard as we were about to step out into the street.
I am shaking with rage even thinking about it right now. The situation is dire out there, and our elected officials are doing worse than nothing. Our school administrators are making it worse.
Talk about radicalizing. I want to start slashing tires.
I’ve told this story before, but back in the 80s a kid was killed walking across a road. Instead of making the road safe for kids to cross, they simply started bussing kids who lived literally across the street from the school.
But the dead kid’s parents donated his college fund to make a new library, so I guess that’s good?
Be the change you want to see in the world
Tyres are pretty amazing tech. Is there an easy way to drop something hard to see in the road that will cause tyre punctures?
Yes
What is it? I’ve run over broken bottles and nails with no issues.
Caltrops.
Thanks. What’s the cheapest way to make these?
Some nails, a vice, a hammer, and a soldering iron
Maybe nails? Probably some good recipes in The Anarchist’s Cookbook.
The only near miss accident I’ve been in was next to a school, there were buses lined up at the side perfectly hiding a small parking lot and a small entrance gap. As I was heading down the main road I was being cautious, and just as I passed the gap me and my instructor both freaked the hell out and gunned it because someone in an SUV ignored the blind spots and just sped through the gap in the buses as fast as they could without looking for any oncoming traffic. Missed by maybe 6 inches, what is wrong with people
I saw a teenager get hit crossing at a crosswalk in front of a school. Red light, driver in the left turn lane didn’t stop behind the line as the girl was crossing. She ended up on the hood and tossed.
I guess the only reason she wasn’t severely injured was that she was hit by a car and not a monster truck.
I lived in an apartment in view of a school. Me and my now wife used to sit on the balcony and play a game of counting the traffic violations and near crashes. it’d easily be 10 near crashes in a 30min period during pick up times. insanity.
Traffic infraction bingo sounds like fun! /s
I lived close enough to my school that I was able to walk every day. Every morning I had to deal with self-centered parents dropping their crotchspawn off at school. I nearly got run over numerous times while crossing the street- a few of which got close enough that their front bumpers touched the backs of my legs as I walked. One parent cut in front of me instead of behind me, and I was able to punch the back of their car as they sped off.
Keep in mind I was a child when this was happening. These were parents that were very nearly running over a child willingly.
Oh, I thought you were going to talk about kids drunk driving massive raised trucks with trump flags and truck nuts
Fuck kids, fuck cars, and fuck kids in cars
I pass by two schools, right next to each other, during my commute to work. There are School Zone speed limit signs that also you your own speed in warning. I always slow down to at least 30 (zone limit is actually 25).
I usually stick to ~30 because I’m on a motorcycle and I have cars ride my ass, clearly pissed off at my slow speed. To my amazement, they then proceed to angrily pull into the school parking lot and drop off their own kids.
They are likely mad that their kid misses the bus which makes them late to work which makes them fall behind.
Not defending asshole behavior but I’ve seen enough parents race through my small neighborhood to drop off their kid at the bus stop.
So you’re saying they’re bad drivers and also bad at teaching their kids punctuality
I have to leave extra early during the school year because if I don’t it takes like 5-10 minutes just to get through the section of the neighborhood that has the bus stop (which is in the middle of the neighborhood for some reason instead of by the entrance where it would make sense) because both sides of the street are lined with parents waiting on the bus in their cars and the street is only wide enough for one car to pass through at a time. They sit there and wait longer than it would take to just drive their kid to the fucking school.
Just wanted to throw in my reality living in a rural area and all the factors that lead into the same problem we have around here.
The walk to my middle school was 1 1/2 hours, 2 when distracted. All 4 lane highways, with no sidewalks. Bus drivers are in high demand with low pay/part time, bus routes can easily go into a 3 hour ride in the afternoon. There is typically 1 highschool per county (must keep the roster pool available for the sports teams), we’re talking a 42 minute straight drive just to get there (so you can sit in trailers because they’re over capacity).
They need to up the bus driver pay, de-stigmatize the position with people who are getting more than fair compensation so they can be proud of their work and a community member who very much actually, physically, is in the world of the growing citizens. Have an assistant who helps with the route and manages the adolescent children (bus shit was wild back in my day, like 3rd base shenanigans going on and I doubt it’s stopped).
I guarantee you, no one having to drive through that shit-storm is enjoying or wanting that experience. Everyone’s anxiety is high and they’re still half asleep in the morning, with the potential to accidentally injure a child before you even get to work. Some of the counties have improved with better traffic techniques like time-regulated flow, roundabouts, and traffic assistants. But, it’s still so depressing and makes you feel like you’re in some industrial meat processing plant line.
It sucks either way. Having your kid get home at 6pm to start on homework (no internet on the bus, most assignments require connectivity) which can take hours, feed them, make sure they get ready for bed by 8-9, then start again at 5am because the bus shows up ass early before the world wakes up. Real public transit doesn’t exist in a 80 mile radius around here, so there’s really no other currently available options besides all the crappy scenarios being told that everyone rightfully hates.
1hr walk is like a 20minute bike ride. All they need is a dirt path that follows the road with 2m grass gap
I’ve lived near a school, and you learn to avoid going out during drop off or pickup times. Driving, riding, walking, it doesn’t matter.
It is not safe. At all.
Yup I live across the street from a K-8 school. It floors me how the parents of these kids drive like maniacs right by the school where their own child and all their classmates go to school. If there where ANYwhere you’d think a parent of a young child would slow the fuck down it’d be by their kids school.
If it’s their kid everyone should slow down and be safe. If it’s anyone else’s kid then they’re just in a hurry and you wouldn’t understand
It is not safe. At all.
That an area designed for our most vulnerable demographic is so dangerous that adults wouldn’t want to be in it says a lot about North American culture.
says a lot about North American culture.
lol, I’m in Australia, but sometimes bad things are universal…
“Western culture”? 😂
I can’t comment about school areas in other countries, but I’ve at least been a passenger in some non Western countries and it seemed very familiar 😱
