Another letter to the council

To whom it may concern

I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to raise this concern. The website allows me to complain about pot holes and litter but there is no way of complaining about thoughtless dangerous people parking in the wrong place. So I’m sending this to you in the hopes that it reaches someone appropriate.

Now I appreciate some parents can be extremely troublesome. I, for one, am annoying. I keep writing to the council about litter, potholes and traffic congestion. But it seems that some parents are even worse than this, especially when it comes to the use of their legs.

For many parents apparently the idea of parking safely around a school and walking 100 metres further is a terrible inconvenience. I could be forgiving and say there is perhaps a much better reason for this than ignorance and laziness. Perhaps they can’t read the signs, or don’t understand what a yellow line means. Which is worrying in itself as they all appear to have driving licences.

So some of our parents, (for whatever reason they think justifies it) park on yellow lines and up curbs at school drop off time. This makes it insanely difficult to see clearly enough to cross a road with small children and without Tufty the Squirrel (1970s road safety reference) it’s a real challenge. 

Bad parking makes the road narrower of course which also results in those drivers who are trying to legally travel down Bannerdale Road getting irate and therefore being much more likely to break the speed limit and narrowly miss running over small children on a daily basis. 

Traffic wardens simply act as a deterrent on the day and nothing more. They see them standing there and park further away. For 24 hours.

The school has tried to explain the dangers to parents. They don’t seem to listen. Signs are put up. We even had the school council (six year olds and a grown up) challenging parents directly which was a good tactic but it only worked for about three days. And if you aren’t going to listen to a six year old who are you going to listen to?

So answers? Ultimately I suspect hitting parents where it hurts is the answer. For some this would be points on their licence; for most it would be cold hard cash.

Here’s my suggestion.

Just ask your traffic wardens to start their shift a little later. Turn up at 8.45 and just see the result. 

1. Everyone could get a parking ticket slapped on their windscreen while the parents are in school depositing their children. Cue swearing and stamping from returning parents and a lesson learnt. 

2. The council earns enough money in one morning to buy the litter bin I’ve been asking for for 3 years.

Isn’t that a win win?

Yours sincerely