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!
in my commute there is a small school i think a kindergarten right on the exit of a highway, there atleast half a dozen “drive safely” white signs with a bunch of flowers and toys on them, around the intersection. Extra fucked thing is those are just the ones that the families still maintain…
Schools, neighborhoods, cities, suburbs, all far too crowded.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
The car drop off lines they have in America look like pure torture. I don’t understand. Does America not have school buses anymore?
The high schools in my city have dedicated city bus routes that transport most of the students. All students who live more than about 1km away get a city bus pass for the year, which means the school transport can be pretty flexible. This is in Canada btw. Many of the people who opt to drive instead either cone from far away because of certain programs at the school or are just privelidged af.
Does America not have school buses anymore?
I’m in Canada, and yes, we do. In fact, the buses were having difficulty getting into the school’s parking lot because of the way the illegally parked cars were quite literally at the edge of the turn (leaving little space for the bus). It’s been sheer madness these past few weeks.
And it’s hilarious (not) when people put on their hazard lights to park illegally while they pick up their kid. I swear to the gods, if my municipality ever gave citizens the ability to write up parking tickets, I’d reduce our property taxes by 10% from the revenue I’d generate! 😄
I live in a small town, i went to school here, and i moved back a couple of years ago. Walking to school is now considered dangerous for children. Why you ask? Because half the parents drive their children to school, which means instead of having no cars around the school, there are now 50 cars around the school at the same time that children walk to school. I feel like i’ taking crazy pills.
And I heard in a public consultation meeting about bike lanes that… get this… Adding bike lanes would make it dangerous for kids to get to school.
What backwards universe did we wake up in?
And that becomes a vicious circle as more children are driven to school, making it more dangerous to walk, so more are driven…
There are actually a lot of ways to slow down cars beyond asking nicely with signs. And it’s not just speed bumps.
The way we design our roads psychologically encourages speeding. Shitty people are out there but road design is important too.
I have a video on the tip of my tongue that I’d like to link, demonstrating this, but I’m too lazy to look it up right now. Maybe later.
The way we design our roads psychologically encourages speeding.
I think most “major” roads are like that, but the school I have to get to is in a subdivision that isn’t busy. And people are still rolling through stop signs while looking at their phone. I think being in a car detaches people from the reality of what’s going on around them. Like playing a video game from behind a windshield.
It’s stuff you don’t really think about like the visual width of the road and long straightaways that let you detach from the dangers of speeding. It’s not just main arterial roads. Traffic calming can and should, arguably more than anywhere else, be employed in those back neighborhood roads as well.
For speeding, yes, you’re right. I was talking more about general inattentiveness, bad judgment, actual malicious driving behaviour, and poorly skilled drivers. No amount of infrastructure can correct that! LOL
Not Just Bikes - The Wrong Way to Set Speed Limits [STO6]
Welcome back to school kids. I hope you all had a good summer. Today we are going to play a game. It’s called Frogger
Graduating from school in Canada or the US is basically “Congratulations on surviving not being killed by guns or cars!”.
Now you can finally relax and enjoy repaying your $100K+ loan!
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.
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 😱
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
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
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
