[David9694]

Today’s subject is the school run and the horse run by two drivers with personalised plates that I see on my 45 minute cycling circuit. 
The names have been changed… 

E14 JAN lives a level and very pleasant mile from the stables, where I presume she has a horse – I guess she has a lot of pony tack and feed, etc to carry back and forth. I often see the car parked at home, or at the stables. The car looks very pristine. 

UK 22 LYN – don’t ask – does the 2.5 mile school run, from her village to ours, 10 miles a day, c2,000 miles a year. I see her come past, I see her come back a few minutes later; I pass the car parked at home on my ride.
Her route takes her within 200 yards of the school that serves her village. Time wise, it must account for a half-day a week. She must have her reasons – perhaps she rates our school as better, but why not spend that “lost” time helping to make her local school better? 

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/18701804.bcp-council-urging-families-avoid-driving-school-run

PS a novel angle in the Echo – “they keep closing down local bank branches – I have coins to deposit – so am forced to drive.” 

Topic

[mdavidford]

david rides wrote:

the people who matter- people with jobs

What a sad way to look at the world.

[Gary's bike channel]

dave, i gave up reading any

dave, i gave up reading any of the comments on the echo website a while back. Its quite obvious theyre just elderly/ retired but mostly unemployed. You watch. Send the echo a video of a bad driver. As soon as it goes live, within minutes of being posted, people are commenting on it, arguing. How can they possibly do that? i wouldn’t be able to do that, not until the late evening. so these people are somehow able to sit at a computer or phone, and get so excited that they can post their opinion- even though it shows in truth the people who matter- people with jobs- aren’t taking part in the comment battle. Hence, theres literally no point reading comments. Even mine to be fair. Although i’ve got home a bit earlier today so i count as being a commenter worthy of being read.  If you recall the ”carmegedon” video i sent them or the one where the kid got knocked off his bike by a taxi driver, or the bad cycle lanes, all of those got well over 200 comments in a day. Anything to do with cycling, cars, road works- all attract these people. Don’t bother with it. Employed people don’t spend their times staring at the echo website eager to post a comment as soon as they can. 

[David9694]

I agree about the

I agree about the polarisation of the whole issue – roadspace and who gets what feeling now like a zero sum problem now. It’s when situations get over busy that they get stressy – 100 seats on the plane, 105 passengers.  Too many cars makes it stressey for all. 

on the curtain-twitching, we saw a lot of that in the lock down: “well, they’re not social distancing”, etc. Some people will just do whatever they want, but many we’ll respond to a bit of peer pressure – none of us is invisible and what others think might just matter enough to curb poor behaviour. 

“friendly chat” – file under T for “that went well”. There is no road related conversation I on my bike want to have initiated by drivers, and I daresay it cuts the other way. They shout, threaten and scream because we’re vulnerable and They Can.  

maybe my Mrs School run would love to use the school local to her, but she can’t get a place there – if so, the system is broken, as Zigster describes. I’d be seeing a lot less of all this, if it wasn’t for home working and getting in a cheeky circuit before 9 some mornings. 

DIY horse ownership is a messy business – Mrs E14 is almost certainly paying for livery, so on an average day has nothing more to carry than a packet of horse treats and occasionally a head collar to clean at home.  
I cite these two examples because I see them both  frequently enough to have built up a pattern.  There’s plenty of other anecdote about out and back school motorised school runners from within my village.
Little short of an arms race: “It’s too dangerous for you to go to school by yourself,” and on it goes. 

[Anonymous]

Haha!

Haha!

Thanks David for making me feel even older than I actually am. I agree a policy change on this would have a significant impact on the health and well being of large swathes of the general population.

[MoutonDeMontagne]

You’re quite wrong on that.

You’re quite wrong on that. Just a lifetime roadie and mountain biker that’s sick to death of cycling websites/forums becoming more and more holier than thou because they happen to also occasionally ride a bike when they’re out of their armchairs, and that their personal circumstances allows them to do as such.

Fueling further divisions in society, be that between different transport users, people of differering political stances, ethnicities etc. is not going to help solve any common problems. It simply creates a ‘them vs us’ sentiment that is detrimental. It’s a sad reflection on todays society that people can’t seem to have a civil and open debate, argue their relevent views, shake hands and be on their way. One persons ideal is unlikely to be a ‘fits all solution’. For example, my morning commute at present involves a 10m walk from my bedroom to my office, and I can pop to the cafe on my bike for lunch if I so wish. My situation and solution will not be suitable for a single mum of 2 who has to drop 2 kids off at 2 differnt schools, get to work, then pick up food for tea on the way home. 

Maybe instead of pouring scorn on the above targets from behind a keyboard, you could stop and engage them in a friendly chat since you see them out and about on a daily basis and have an open discussion about the merits of sustainable transport and it’s applicability to individual solutions. After all, we all despise clogged roads, aggressive drivers, close passes etc, but if we keep fueling the intolerance of each other, how are we going to attract people to switch from cars, or educate drivers to be more respectful? Riding a bike should be easy and accessible to everyone. Equally, the cycling community should be open and welcoming, not the sole domain of some intolerent, ignorent and judgemental elite. 

I appreciate that I have rather singled out your post and your thread for my (somewhat intolerent – the irony is not lost on me) soapbox moment. It’s not a vendetta about you personally, but more a general comment on how we as a community and society may need to reflect on our behaivoir. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Afterall, how can we rant about that w**ker in a BMW yelling abuse and vitriol at us in a newspaper, if we simply do the same in return at someone simply taking their kids to school. 

[David9694]

spin class #irony with Karl –

spin class #irony with Karl – 9 o’clock sharp, everyone. 

[David9694]

Ah, you must be one of the

Ah, you must be one of the commenters from the Echo website – you’re right, almost everyone has some infirmity, an old war wound or mobility problem – that’s just bad enough to stop them cycling or waking, but conveniently allows them to drive safely, and somehow they have the fiscal means to run a car. Sorry if that sounds callous of me, I’m sure there are plenty of genuine cases, but I am pretty jaded now by the what-aboutery based around this group’s needs.  

[OldRidgeback]

My secondary school in

My former secondary school in Edinburgh is very close to the main road on the north side of the city linking with the Forth Road Bridge. It also connects with the M8 to Glasgow. It’s a very busy road with two lanes in either direction and carries a lot of commuter traffic in and out of the city. The kids who lived on the other side of the road had to cross it every day and as you can imagine, it was busy then and is more so now. If anyone was late in the morning, well I don’t have to spell out the rest. I do remember two kids being killed and there were several injured.

[David9694]

Cargobike wrote:

I might be wrong, but I think it was one of Blairs policies.

You are – although many local authorities had admission policies that allowed parents to express a preference about school choice, the Education Act 1980 made it mandatory.  
I increasingly think it’s a policy that has had its day. 

[Anonymous]

While it’s easy to blame the

While it’s easy to blame the parents this all stems from government policy to try and level the playing field of the social classes by allowing pupils from poorer areas to attend higher achieving schools outside of their neighbourhood, instead of focusing resources on raising teaching across the education sector as a whole.

I might be wrong, but I think it was one of Blairs policies.

Humans as a whole are lazy beings, if there is a way of doing something without exerting ourselves we’ll do it, such as driving walkable distances, having your takeaway delivered to your front-door. Machines supposedly outperform human hands.

The down side is we become over reliant on our machines and make them the default option in everything we do. Add in slick marketing, especially fear based safety messages and we end up in the clusterfuck that we have now whereby sitting in traffic jams for an hour a day is perceived as acceptable where once it would have been a 15 minute walk each way.

None of this is helped by teachers, GP’s etc being expected to live apart from their pupils/patients in neighbouring towns and villages instead of being the local pillars of their immediate societies.

[Captain Badger]

We’ve gone even past that! We

We’ve gone even past that! We’re at the level where we tut-tut at people on cycling forums for expressing their frustration at ubiquitous/unnecessary car use. Kind of forum twitching if you will…

[MoutonDeMontagne]

Jesus Christ, have we really

Jesus Christ, have we really reached the curtain twitching level where we’re passing judgement on other peoples lives. Maybe one of the children has a need that can’t be catered for at the local school. Maybe she can’t walk a mile due to an old horse riding injury. And so what if the car is pristine, last time I check owning or keeping one of your posessions isn’t a crime. Same as having a pristine looking superbike and only riding a 45 minute loop from home. 

Perhaps they look at a lycra clad nosy local out on his bike tutting at people trying to get on with daily life, and wonder why he doesn’t have a job to go to? 

What happened to love thy neigbour and the tolerance of others, no wonder this country has gone to shit. 

 

[Awavey]

fwiw I dont remember any kids

fwiw I dont remember any kids at either of my schools being hit by cars, and we all walked roughly 0.8mile-1mile to get there or took the bus, in fact I used to remember it being a really embarrasing thing for kids to chauffered around by their parents like that, so Im at a total loss how weve ended up in this state that the school run has become a thing.

and I know its too late now the schools are back, to go out for my regular quick afternoon covid lockdown rides, because Ill be heading back just as the school run kicks off, I got caught out last week when only half the schools were back and Ive not seen either the volume of traffic or the sheer hostility on the roads like that for months, I had one mum in an SUV, who you could see was already visibly mega stressed just by the way she was hunched up and lent over the steering wheel, who just floored the accelerator and drove at me nearly head on in a just a get out of my cant you see Im a motorist taking my kids home manner.

[OldRidgeback]

I walked to and from primary

I walked to and from primary school and then secondary school also. It was just over a mile to the former and about the same to the latter, but in a different direction. The route to both did take me across busy roads. The little brother of a classmate was knocked down and by a car on the way to primary school. He died in hospital. Several people at my secondary school were knocked over by cars when I was there and a coupled died as a I recall. Yep, weren’t the 70s great (not).

My kids take the bus to and from school.

[OldRidgeback]

He drives them there and then

He drives them there and then drives back. The thing is, given the traffic and the narrow roads, it takes the same time to walk.

I don’t know what he does for a living.

[Author]

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