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!
Or live near a church and have assholes park in front of your gate despite a sign saying not to.
Schools, neighborhoods, cities, suburbs, all far too crowded.
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…
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…
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! 😄
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!
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.
Not Just Bikes - The Wrong Way to Set Speed Limits [STO6]
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
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.
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 😱
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
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 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
It’s also part of the reason why so many of these kids (and their parents) are overweight.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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
