At 3pm every weekday it's a circus outside most primary schools in the country as parents vie for a parking space so they can collect their children. According to the Ministry of Education, "[o]ne of the most effective ways to ease traffic congestion at schools is to reduce the number of cars coming and going from your school".
But despite such alternatives as walking, cycling, bussing, car pooling and joining the walking school bus, our love affair with the convenience of private cars seems undiminished. Of course, parents who drive children to and from school are accused of "cotton-wool parenting" by the in-my-day-we-walked-ten-miles-to-school-barefoot-in-the-pouring-rain brigade - which just makes me wonder whether they also lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road.
Regardless, the reality of the traffic issues of today remains. Entering the school pick-up fray is not for the fainthearted. There's a lot of ignorant, selfish behaviour on display. "Illegal practices include double parking and parking on yellow lines, across driveways, and near crossings" all of which is "irritating for neighbours" and "unsafe for other road users," says the Ministry of Education. (For the record, I've never double-parked, parked on yellow lines, in a driveway, in a bus-stop or undertaken any other illegal and anti-social parking manoeuvre at school drop-off or pick-up. I always park lawfully and happily walk 300 or 400 metres or more into the school if I have to.)
Unfortunately not every parent is so well disciplined. Once I was driving along a street outside my daughter's school near 3 o'clock and the vehicle (a champagne-coloured 4WD) in front of me simply stopped where it was in the lane. Without indicating or even pretending to shift to the left, the driver blithely forced me (and whoever was behind me) to wait while a teenaged student emerged from the school grounds, sauntered across the road and got in the vehicle.
Parents routinely stop in the middle of the lane waiting on the off-chance that a car in an angle-park will vacate the space. In the meantime they're blocking the narrow road and holding up other vehicles attempting to legitimately use the road. Politeness coupled with a general fear of confrontation forbids me from shouting: "There isn't a park, Honey. Move on." Instead I wait, take deep breaths and fume silently.
