School Run Late

goz83

So I Got a text from a lady friend of mine, saying traffic was mental and that she was late dropping her son to school by 40 minutes because of it. Funny, because she is a 10 minute walk from the school, 15 at most. I slagged her, saying she could have walked instead of being stuck in traffic all that time. It's not like the weather was bad either. The huge number of parents driving their kids (often literally a 5 minute walk to the school) is beyond silly. Fine, if you're going from there to work, or somewhere else, but the vast majority are house mums. Where I live, they actually have started to park in the bus stop :eek:

shruikan2553

When it comes to the school run do not make assumptions about what is logical. You will never meet people with less situational awareness.

solomafioso

Yeah, f*ckin' breeders. *shakes fist*

Mr. Incognito

I grew up in Kerry and everyone cycled, walked, took a bus.

I now live in Rathmines and the amount of 4x4 Soccer Moms dropping the Kids off to Marys in what is arguably one of the best public transport serviced areas in the country is mind blowing to me.

thomas anderson.

School Run?

More like School Crawl

Will they ever learn?

Nah, because they'll never make it in time

whiskeyman

They're just afraid little Mary / Johnny would be kidnapped walking / cycling to school by some paedo in a white van offering them sweets.
Fear is a huge factor their little darlings get driven to school... and also why obesity is a big problem with our children.

Slicemeister

Would she have been making an onward journey after making the school drop maybe?

anncoates

Slicemeister wrote: »

Would she have been making an onward journey after making the school drop maybe?

Quit injecting reason into the cheap bile mixture.

Larbre34

Its basically the Hunger Games of modern Ireland. (Apart from those genuinely hungry of course)

All civility and common sense goes out the window at school run times. Its a free for all, anarchy, the Guards and the school wardens have given up. The worst of people's ignorance and arrogance comes streaming out.

Short of closing the roads to schools at either end or towing offending vehicles en masse and confiscating them for a week, it will not get through peoples dumb heads that their kids aren't not going to dissolve like a disprin in some drizzle, come down with Ebola because its 6 degrees, disappear like Madeleine McCann, or that every adult is not a child offender in waiting.

The guys running the Luas did a shaming video yesterday of the kind of window lickers that walk aimlessly out in front of trams. Perhaps a shaming video by the Gardaí of 'school runs greatest t1ts' might be a good start...

SEPT 23 1989

The weight of my daughters schoolbag is shocking,even for a grown adult its too heavy to carry daily over a distance

cant see why secondary school kids are not using laptops

(there is no bus route to her school from the house and the road is too dangerous to let her cycle)

thats why she is driven

Hoop66

Or, and this is probably crazy, they could ask the parents not to park cars near the school. Or they could encourage parents who live nearby or have kids old enough, to walk to school.

They did at my daughters' school and, being reasonable people, the vast majority of parents complied.

tritium

They really need to ban parking around schools and enforce it. The amount of folks who drop their little darlings by car when walking or cycling is an option is insane. We're raising a generation of lazy kids who see the car as the default option to get anywhere.

Paulzx

whiskeyman wrote: »

They're just afraid little Mary / Johnny would be kidnapped walking / cycling to school by some paedo in a white van offering them sweets.
Fear is a huge factor their little darlings get driven to school... and also why obesity is a big problem with our children.

Then why don't they walk themselves with the kids to school?


The bottom line is.....it's not the kids that have a problem walking to school. It's the parents that are too damn lazy to walk a 10 min journey.

rubberdiddies

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

The weight of my daughters schoolbag is shocking,even for a grown adult its too heavy to carry daily over a distance

cant see why secondary school kids are not using laptops

(there is no bus route to her school from the house and the road is too dangerous to let her cycle)

thats why she is driven

The weight of my school bag back in the day was equally as shocking but still managed to walk/cycle to school for the 5 years

kylith

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

The weight of my daughters schoolbag is shocking,even for a grown adult its too heavy to carry daily over a distance

cant see why secondary school kids are not using laptops

(there is no bus route to her school from the house and the road is too dangerous to let her cycle)

thats why she is driven

My schoolbag was so heavy I used to get chest pains, the problem, I think, is in having 3 years curriculum in on book, my science book must have weighed a ton.

I still walked every day though, I had no other option. There were no buses and both my parents worked.

Make sure that your daughter has a good backpack, and that she uses both straps.

eviltwin

Don't assume all parents driving their kids to school are doing it because they are lazy, I drive my daughter to school, there is no direct bus route and the school is 15 kms away.

Barely There

kylith wrote: »

, my science book must have weighed a ton.

It didn't - that's why you failed science.

everlast75

Larbre34 wrote: »

Perhaps a shaming video by the Gardaí of 'school runs greatest t1ts' might be a good start...

Giggity

hfallada

I went to a private school and one day the teacher asked the class whose mother worked. And out of 25 of us, all mothers were working. Meaning it wasn't possible for mother's to drive their children to school unless they worked in the area of the school.

One incentive to stop child being dropped to school. Is schools could actually provide somewhere to keep a bike. Schools in Germany literally have hundreds of bike racks and basements to keep bikes dry. Here there is often just a railing( where you aren't allowed to lock your bike). Another option is giving a decent child fare on buses. Dublin bus school child fare had nearly doubled in 7 years. It's probably cheaper to drive your children the 5 minn journey instead of the bus

JRant

We have a secondary school at the top of our road and the only word i can use to describe the carry on is "savages". If i don't leave the house by 8:10am i'm pretty much guaranteed to be blocked in by some dope.

There's no more an inconsiderate person than someone dropping their little darling off at school.

anncoates

While we're all witch-hunting people that may or may not be able to walk to school with their kids for whatever reason, can we also poll the people complaining abut the traffic being blocked as to whether they themselves might consider getting public transport or cycling to work themselves?

anncoates

rubberdiddies wrote: »

The weight of my school bag back in the day was equally as shocking but still managed to walk/cycle to school for the 5 years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFOREsY7txU

AnonoBoy

Maybe if it was an actual school run we wouldn't have so many porky kids waddling about the place eh?

GET TO SCHOOL!!!! MUSH!!!! MUSH!!!! MUSH!!!!!!!

rubberdiddies

rubberdiddies wrote: »

The weight of my school bag back in the day was equally as shocking but still managed to walk/cycle to school for the 5 years

Same here for 8 years. Started walking/cycling in 5th class. I can see many chiropractor appointments in my future as a result

pickarooney

Snotaul Goodman wrote: »

Same here for 8 years. Started walking/cycling in 5th class. I can see many chiropractor appointments in my future as a result

Wheely shopping bags and paniers would save a lot of pain

eviltwin

pickarooney wrote: »

Wheely shopping bags and paniers would save a lot of pain

Wheeled bags are banned now in a lot of schools because they are a tripping hazard.

pickarooney

pickarooney wrote: »

Wheely shopping bags and paniers would save a lot of pain

Physically maybe. But if you showed up in my school with a wheely bag you'd be seeing a therapist forever. Its a lose/lose situation.

PizzamanIRL

tritium wrote: »

We're raising a generation of lazy kids who see the car as the default option to get anywhere.

Go on then, name one other way of getting around other than a car. You can't, can you?

Mr. Incognito

Lots of people talking about DIRECT bus routes.

They have this thing called student cards that you can use to take two bus journeys.

Sure you can trust your kid to figure out how to walk from bus stop A to Bus stop B

pickarooney

eviltwin wrote: »

Wheeled bags are banned now in a lot of schools because they are a tripping hazard.

Brilliant. I always assumed people were taking the piss about Irish schools banning kids from running but it seems to not actually be a joke.

The Backwards Man

Kids getting lifted and laid to school doesn't really bother me, it's what they do the rest of the day.


We were given a lift to school because we had to do a couple of hours work before we left and would have been late otherwise. Getting the chance to walk home was great because it meant there were no jobs waiting at home that you had to hurry back for.

phasers

pickarooney wrote: »

Brilliant. I always assumed people were taking the piss about Irish schools banning kids from running but it seems to not actually be a joke.

Not a joke I'm afraid. It's all about minimizing the school's liability. I wasn't allowed to run when I was in primary school in the 90s so it's nothing new really.

eviltwin

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Lots of people talking about DIRECT bus routes.

They have this thing called student cards that you can use to take two bus journeys.

Sure you can trust your kid to figure out how to walk from bus stop A to Bus stop B

In theory its fine, in practice its not that easy. We live in West Dublin, daughter goes to school in North county Dublin. The bus journey would be close on 2 hours and I'm not going to ask her to do that. Its not always possible to get your child into the local school. In our case she has special needs that wouldn't be supported by the local schools so we feel this is the best option. Its not ideal and we'd love it if she could just walk to school but plenty of other people drive to work or wherever, I don't see why its school kids who get the grief all the time.

_Kaiser_

Larbre34 wrote: »

Perhaps a shaming video by the Gardaí of 'school runs greatest t1ts' might be a good start...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5HOt0ZOcYk

jamesbere

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5HOt0ZOcYk

What film is that from again

_Kaiser_

jamesbere wrote: »

What film is that from again

The original Robocop... far far better than the recent remake!

moc moc a moc

whiskeyman wrote: »

They're just afraid little Mary / Johnny would be kidnapped walking / cycling to school by some paedo in a white van offering them sweets.
Fear is a huge factor their little darlings get driven to school... and also why obesity is a big problem with our children.

You've got it the wrong way round - they're keeping the kids fat so the paedos don't want to shag them.

Ihatecuddles

I walk with my son every day, he has cerebral palsy so the walk is good for him. It takes us 15 minutes, and we cross 3 busy roads.

There's another child in our estate that goes to the same place and they drive, I've never understood it. They get there early, she goes straight home after, and it takes me 5 minutes to get home without my son. Another parent told me I was mental to be walking it in winter, told me to tell my husband to get the bus to work so I could have the car and not subject my 4 year old to the walk!!

endacl

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

I grew up in Kerry and everyone cycled, walked, took a bus.

I now live in Rathmines and the amount of 4x4 Soccer Moms dropping the Kids off to Marys in what is arguably one of the best public transport serviced areas in the country is mind blowing to me.

Mary's? The secondary school? Mammy is driving them to school? FFS, what sort of a generation of jessies are they turning out?!?

Tombi!

Alright, firstly OP is talking about people who live within walking distance. Walking distance can differ by opinion but I think if you live within 15 minutes of walking then you should walk. That's just my opinion. It's not gonna kill you unless you have another place to be.

Cars are more of a "everyone has one" kinda deal now. People just use them for everything.
There was a man I knew that would drive probably 30-40 seconds to go to a corner shop. It wasn't even busy. It was from a block of flats, around a corner onto the main road where the shop was.
He'd park just at the f**king corner, go to the shop, do a u-turn and drive home.
And he'd rarely get more than bread and milk.

iguana

phasers wrote: »

Not a joke I'm afraid. It's all about minimizing the school's liability. I wasn't allowed to run when I was in primary school in the 90s so it's nothing new really.

We had so many awful rules in our playground in the late 80s. No skipping ropes, no balls of any kind - including marbles, no elastics (a jumping game played with a string of elastic bands) and no playing on the grass, we had to stay on the tarmac. These were all banned in case someone should trip while running, which made no sense as running was banned. As we couldn't really play anything physical at lunch break, cards and Top Trumps became popular but within weeks they were banned without any reason given. Then fruit was banned in the yard, if you wanted to eat an apple, orange or banana at lunch you had to stand in the corridor and eat it, this was because one kid threw an apple core at another in boredom one lunch break.

The year after I left the principle tried to ban the boys and girls from playing with each other, in case the boys were too rough for the girls. I'm not sure what they would have been rough at as they couldn't actually play anything. That was finally a move too stupid for the parents who got together to complain about it, pointing out that there was a boys' school and a girls' school already in the same area and if they had wanted gender segregation for their children they wouldn't have sent them to the mixed school.

Rubberlegs

I'm lucky in that the school is 5 minutes walk away, unless it was belting down rain, we walk. The little one is only in playschool, but like her sisters before her, she will not be spoilt with lifts. This morning was an exception, I had to go into town, so I drove, parked opposite the school, and walked from there. My neighbours kids are in the same school, and rain or shine, they get a lift up and down every day. I do appreciate that some people live too far from their school, or are hurrying on to work . Other than that there is no excuse for parents not to walk little ones to school. My middle girl has a disability, and she was told to walk just the same, the exercise does her the world of good. She is fortunate to have been provided with a second set of text books, in secondary school, so no excuse whatsoever not to walk. I do agree, the weight of the bags in secondary is insane, I dropped her over the first day she was back, before she got her second set of books. I could barely lift the bag myself. It is high time the kids could download textbooks onto laptops, and just have copies to carry.

holystungun9

moc moc a moc wrote: »

You've got it the wrong way round - they're keeping the kids fat so the paedos don't want to shag them.

Meh. For me, it just makes them easier to catch.

shruikan2553

It wouldn't be so bad if these women just learnt to park. Stopping your car and making everyone else wait until you let your child out, walk them to the gate, get back into your car and drive off pretending that what you did was completely normal and not a prick thing to do.

kylith

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

There was a man I knew that would drive probably 30-40 seconds to go to a corner shop. It wasn't even busy. It was from a block of flats, around a corner onto the main road where the shop was.
He'd park just at the f**king corner, go to the shop, do a u-turn and drive home.
And he'd rarely get more than bread and milk.

My parents are the same. If I say I'm going to the shop they'll ask if I want a lift, my house is literally 200m from the shop. It would take as long to find somewhere to park there as it would to just walk.

iguana wrote: »

We had so many awful rules in our playground in the late 80s. No skipping ropes, no balls of any kind - including marbles, no elastics (a jumping game played with a string of elastic bands) and no playing on the grass, we had to stay on the tarmac. These were all banned in case someone should trip while running, which made no sense as running was banned. As we couldn't really play anything physical at lunch break, cards and Top Trumps became popular but within weeks they were banned without any reason given. Then fruit was banned in the yard, if you wanted to eat an apple, orange or banana at lunch you had to stand in the corridor and eat it, this was because one kid threw an apple core at another in boredom one lunch break.

The year after I left the principle tried to ban the boys and girls from playing with each other, in case the boys were too rough for the girls. I'm not sure what they would have been rough at as they couldn't actually play anything. That was finally a move too stupid for the parents who got together to complain about it, pointing out that there was a boys' school and a girls' school already in the same area and if they had wanted gender segregation for their children they wouldn't have sent them to the mixed school.

Jesus H Christ! I was in primary in the mid-late 80s and we used to play Horses (running around dragging out of each other's coats), Tag, rounders, chasing, skipping... The mind boggles that a school could outlaw children playing.

Irish Steve

Classic example.

Our estate, there is a pedestrian entrance to the local school that's 250 mtrs walk. Our neighbour used to spend a number of minutes strapping 3 kids into the car to then drive 800 Mtrs to the road entrance, to drop one off for school, to then come home again with the other 2.

Walking time would have been probably in the order of 2, maybe 3 minutes, even with small kids in tow, round trip time 5 minutes, road trip time with strapping kids in, driving up to the school and navigating through the chaos at the entrance, and then home again and unloading the car, close on 15 to 20 minutes. Never did understand the mentality of that family.

And yes, for other reasons, we were VERY happy when they moved out.

YellowFeather

iguana wrote: »

We had so many awful rules in our playground in the late 80s. No skipping ropes, no balls of any kind - including marbles, no elastics (a jumping game played with a string of elastic bands) and no playing on the grass, we had to stay on the tarmac. These were all banned in case someone should trip while running, which made no sense as running was banned. As we couldn't really play anything physical at lunch break, cards and Top Trumps became popular but within weeks they were banned without any reason given. Then fruit was banned in the yard, if you wanted to eat an apple, orange or banana at lunch you had to stand in the corridor and eat it, this was because one kid threw an apple core at another in boredom one lunch break.

The year after I left the principle tried to ban the boys and girls from playing with each other, in case the boys were too rough for the girls. I'm not sure what they would have been rough at as they couldn't actually play anything. That was finally a move too stupid for the parents who got together to complain about it, pointing out that there was a boys' school and a girls' school already in the same area and if they had wanted gender segregation for their children they wouldn't have sent them to the mixed school.

That. Is. Insane.

I was in primary in the 90s, and we had nothing like that. In Autumn, the leaves would be swept into a corner of the yard and would turn into mush which we used as an ice skating rink. Loads of bumps and bruises during break time, but we somehow managed to survive.. I know it's bad now, but I didn't think it was like that anywhere in the 80s?

goz83

eviltwin wrote: »

Don't assume all parents driving their kids to school are doing it because they are lazy, I drive my daughter to school, there is no direct bus route and the school is 15 kms away.

I don't assume anything in that regard, but I know what I see and I know many of these people, who live a 3 minute walk to the primary schools, but choose the 15 minute drive instead. 15klms away is not what I was talking about.

phasers wrote: »

Not a joke I'm afraid. It's all about minimizing the school's liability. I wasn't allowed to run when I was in primary school in the 90s so it's nothing new really.

Mad stuff. At my school, it was all game, including all the rough stuff, short of kicking the sh1te out of anyone. We visited a school in Meath one time (a pen pal swap) and at break, we were not allowed run :eek:

We were all shocked. How can kids use up their energy if they can't play at school?

eviltwin wrote: »

In theory its fine, in practice its not that easy. We live in West Dublin, daughter goes to school in North county Dublin. The bus journey would be close on 2 hours and I'm not going to ask her to do that. Its not always possible to get your child into the local school. In our case she has special needs that wouldn't be supported by the local schools so we feel this is the best option. Its not ideal and we'd love it if she could just walk to school but plenty of other people drive to work or wherever, I don't see why its school kids who get the grief all the time.

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

Alright, firstly OP is talking about people who live within walking distance. Walking distance can differ by opinion but I think if you live within 15 minutes of walking then you should walk.

Thank you. That's exactly what I was talking about.

If it takes longer to drive there than it does to walm unless there is a good reason, people are just retarded an uber lazy. And I am no stranger to lazy.

CrazyRabbit

Never had the luxury of being driven to school.

I remember heading out to school one morning during a storm and turning back after 2 mins. I told my mum that the wind was too strong but she kicked me back out the door. It was a 3.5 mile walk to school, walking at a near 45 degree against the wind and it nearly killed me. I practically collapsed at the school gates. ****ing asshole Christian Brother then gave me detention because I was 15 mins late.

Pumpkinseeds

There are 2 secondary schools and 4 primary schools in my town, all within walking distance for anyone living in the town. Most kids have bikes and we've no shortage of cycle lanes, yet despite this it's almost impossible to get across the road during school run times, due to the sheer volume of traffic. Some of the residents are trying to raise funds for yet another fcuking playground.

Anyone who drives their children to school, then drives home, then drives back to pick the kids up from school then drives home again, and who wants me to donate money to a playground or anything else for that matter, for their kids can take a running fcuking jump. 4 car journeys a day because they don't want their kids to walk to school and parents are bitching about water charges.:mad:

byhookorbycrook

eviltwin wrote: »

Wheeled bags are banned now in a lot of schools because they are a tripping hazard.

There is also the issue of what the bags roll through on the way to school ending up on the school desk when the child goes rooting for their lunch. Scoop that poop!!

I am always intrigued by the yummies who arrive all lycra clad in the 4x4s and then park up (usually in the way of a school gate or bus bay) so they can go "walking."