Janspeed

iTrader: (1)

......this is fooking ridiculous:

PistonHeads Headlines

Soon you will have to share your baths/showers with strangers to lower the emissions in your council!

Pathetic, this is among a million other thing that is taking away ppls freedom, and stealing even more money!

Snazy

Sadly to a degree I agree with the calling for it.

Some journies are pointless, I think most would agree. However as usual, its going to be a blanket thing I guess, which means people suffering for no reason.

In central london certainly school holidays are SO much nicer to drive in.

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

I agree, this is yet another charge, to make money rather than save the environment, but that maybe in my mind because I'm still reluctant to believe that cars actually cause as much harm as some would like us to believe.

That said, I accept people may need to use their cars for the school run, depending on their own circumstances, but I think it is no bad thing to try and discourage unnecessary journeys. I don't think this is the way to do it, but at times people are too quick to jump in the car when they don't really need to.

When I was at school, not that long ago, I never travelled by car, and we owned one. I know people may live a distance away, public transport isn't always good, or people are on their way to work, but there will be a vast amount who don't NEED to travel by car to take kids to school. To some extent people have become lazy, I could explain that further, but I'm babbling enough.

I'm all for discouraging behaviour and actions, but not forcing, especially through money. I wouldn't be surprised if some come along and say £75 a year isn't alot, but to some, that will be, especially added to ever other cost and tax we are hit by at the moment.

Janspeed

iTrader: (1)

This whole eco-babble BS is going nowhere!

It will not resolve anything.

Scoobyols69

that is stupid we pay enough tax and all that rubbish and they trying to get money out of people trying to give there kids an education !! Stupid that is i disagree with the £75 it should be free

slick5150

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NotoriousREV

This would be fine if you were actually guaranteed to get your child into your local school but half the time, you can't. We live within sight of our local primary and yet we're not guaranteed a place there, the next nearest is 5 miles away, therefore we will have no choice but to drop my son off in the car if we don't get into the local school.

PeteBrant

Isn't the number one thing every single person that has to drive to work in the morning is the "****ing school run"?

There should definitely be a disincentive to driving kids to school. Whether that disincentive should be £75 is another thing entirely.

TopBanana

I'm sure people on the school run say the same about those driving to work. So perhaps there should be a disinsentive for driving to work too?

Or is work more important than school?

PeteBrant

Arguably - But - Public transport links to schools tend to be excellent. Where there is a school you will find a bus stop fairly nearby. The same cannot be said of every work place

Having said this, in the grand scheme of thing, at the most extreme case - if work stopped the country would stop. If school stopped it wouldn't - Therefore, you *could* say work is more important and therefore has the right of priority on the roads.

It is one thing to drop off 5,6,7 years olds to school I can completely understand that (assuming you dont live within walking distance). Completely another to drop off 13,14,15 year olds off, which is often the case.

dpb

Quite agree , school bus for all pupils ...!

- unless of course its miles off the beatan path as my primary school of 60 pupils , and then it was 4 to a car .

Leslie

Won't be long before there ia a special tax if your child has a school place as well, on top of the taxes used to educate our children-badly!

Les

TopBanana

I know of very few places in this country except inner cities where public transport is excellent. Certainly not for my kids' schools.

That's utterly ridiculous. You might as well say that it's more important to have a beating heart than a breathing lung.

If you have to choose between school and work, something is seriously f**ked and tweaks such as £70 fines for living away from a busroute isn't going to fix it.

dpb

your right Les - least it keeps ,most, of them off the streets

TopBanana

They'll phase that one in. First they'll tax you if your child is in a class smaller then 35 pupils.

Snazy

Park and Ride system of school buses could work for the majority.
It is indeed the case that some local scool are over crowded, so places no available, however in some cases parents are choosing to send their kids flippin miles away, and drive them in, fair enough.

But there are also those who drive a short distance, in big cars that they are unsure of, cant park, block roads, and do indeed cause extra congestion. Not congestion as a whole.

The whole issue certainly needs looking at, without a doubt.

dpb

its funny cos its (prolly) true

PeteBrant

As a general rule - Where there is a school, there is some form of public trasnport - be it bus train or school bus.
Ahh, but you can function on one lung - but not half a heart

Therefore the Heart is the more important organ

Why would you have to choose between work and school? Like I said, if the kids are 5,6,7 fair enough.
If the kids are in thier teens they should be able to make thier own way to school.


If you insist on driving teenagers to school then you shoudl have to pay a price for clogging up the roads with unnecessary traffic. What that price should be is a different matter.

boxst

Yes, I'm guilty of this to be honest. I live about 1km from my children's school and tend to drive. They are only 4 and 7 though ...

Steve

Clarebabes

I've always said that we really need the yellow school bus system they have in the states. The bus picks your kid up and takes them to school along with loads of other kids. Only school kids on the bus, no druggies or grannies. This ONE vehicle could replace 60 cars.

I drop my daughter off on the way to work, but as she goes to breakfast club, this is at 8am when most of the other kids don't start til 8:50. It is gridlock outside the school at that time. What amazes me is that the majority of these mums don't work! They'd have plenty of time to walk to school and back.

Clarebabes

Oh and I get really angry when they have this "National walk to school week". It's OK if you've got nothing else to do with your time than walk to school, but some of us DO have to work you know....

PeteBrant

I think that makes the difference - People making specific journeys to take thier kids to school. And you can see the effect when the schools ar eholiday to see just how many people are doing this.

Totally agree on the School bus system.

Clarebabes

Yeah, even I look forward to school holidays, I can get to work in 20 minutes! (Usually 30-40!)

MrNoisy

iTrader: (28)

Couldn't agree more. My wife works in Windsor - on a normal day it takes her nearly 40 minutes to drive to work. When schools are on holiday it takes 25 minutes!

Not only that but there are plenty of school buses specifically laid on to take children to school so there's no excuse for the people carrier / 4x4 driving mothers to be out blocking up the roads.

Whilst I appreciate not everyone gets their kids into a local school thanks to this stupid Labour lottery system (one of their most idiotic yet I might add), I can't believe that thousands of people are so far in the country that they couldn't drive their kids to a school bus stop rather than into the towns or cities (which btw is what my mother used to do when I was at school - 5 minutes down the road to a bus stop).

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

The report says the scheme is being trialled in 13 primary and infant schools, so the teenager arguement, also valid for congestion, isn't being addressed here

I will be doing the school run when my eldest starts school in September, she'll only be 4 and the only way to get her there is by car. Its a 5-10 minute drive or an hour walk, or an hour for me to get the bus with her, then the bus back, then drive into work. Do you think the school will let me drop her off 30mins early so that I can bus / walk back to then travel to my work on time? No. Ours doesn't.

When will they councils accept that if they invested in a dedicated schoolbus scheme that picks up the kids from designated areas with a supervised attendent on board, USA style, they would be serving the people that pay their ****ing wages. But no, lets instead introduce a negative scheme by trying to distrupt the populus whilst cashing in at the same time.

Councils often forget that they should provide a service, not take them away

The Zohan

Nice idea but in this day and age impractical for a lot.

We have two kids, on at school, our childcare bill is £ 950.00 per month - we both have to work to pay the bills.

Our journeys take 50 and 30 min's and normally would not allow either of us to walk the kids, Nursery is some 3 miles away do not practicable anyhow.

Sch0ol and work start time make it almost impossible to walk our eldest to school - even with her going to pre and after school club.

The gov't and schools need to wake up to the facts that a lot of parents work - to pay the bills not just for fun or the hell of it or to get away from the kids.

Jenny would much rather work part-time, drop/pick the kids up (walk to school takes 10 mines each way) but not feasible due to our financial commitments, until the youngest goes to school anyway.

It is not through choice so much as necessity. Might be cheaper for us to both claim unemployment and all our benefits and live in a council house sponging but neither of us where brought up thinking that way.

PeteBrant

Indeed, but I was looking at the "bigger" picture.

But isolating this story on its own. I think it is completely inpractical to limit parent from taking personal responsbility for picking up and dropping children from school when they are of primary school age.

Of course if you live within walking distance, that's fine - But I don't think it is practical to expect a 5-9 year old to get on a bus on thier own - Unless it is a yellow school bus system. Which I think is what the answer is for primary school kids.

Of course this will cost money, so you have to find that from somewhere.

Clarebabes

Paul, I agree with you. I was just saying that some of us CAN'T walk to school as we have to continue on to work.

I get around this by using the breakfast club which starts at 8. That way I can work full-time and she gets something to eat in the morning before school. I also use the school's after school care a couple of nights a week and luckily have a friend who picks her up the rest of the time.

I have noticed there's quite a few kids on our "estate" (I hate that word!) and it would be easy to reduce the amount of cars that go to the school if there was a bus in place.

The council will never do it because that doesn't raise revenue, does it?

FlightMan

I'd like to suggest petrol tax revenue. The Govt must have several hundred million £ more than they budgeted for!

Hold on though, this is a scheme that would make sense, most ordinary people support, and would make many peoples lives better.

It'll never happen.

Geezer

Tricky situation. I wholeheartedly agree with anything that reduces the amount of people taking their kids to school by car when they really should be wlkaing them, but I also appreciate that some people need to use the car and it's penalising them.

Perhaps applying for a permit and then charging those that don't have one?

Geezer