Re: Do *You* Hate Motorists? Take The Test

On Tue, 5 May 2009 11:00:44 +0100, "mileburner"
<mileburner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Mark" <i@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5b000550pii8lm86qpju1irnoa68tq9nq8@xxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 1 May 2009 15:31:17 +0100, "mileburner"
<mileburner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I cannot see that any LA (or whoever would be responsible) would have the
balls to allow a road to be closed to traffic for a limited period for the
safety of pedestians, even if they are schoolchildren. You would need
several fatal accidents before they took the issue *that* seriously.

They have admitted as much. However we are determined and I have
succeeded in other areas where all around have told me it was
impossible.

Good luck and keep pressing on. One of the obsticles the LA frequently use
is that "local residents will object". It might take a bit of footwork but
if you can get a pettition signed by all the people who live on the road
where it is intended to be closed, it blows that argument out of the water.
You will also be surprised that the majority of local residents will
actually support traffic reduction and road safety measures. They get just
as pissed off with the school traffic as the parents do.

The last time no reason was given for the opposition to road closure
IIRC. We were told that if we proceeded to ask for this the local
council would oppose *all* our other proposals too. However this was
a long time ago and all those councillors are long gone.

I can assure you that this did *NOT* improve safety as the cars were
still able to drive along the road and the pedestrians had to fit
through the same gap.

If you have that situation occur, it is better to stand in the road to
direct and block *all* the traffic so that people do not get hit by it. It
might be radical, it might not even be legal, but it could avoid a serious
accident. I do this when there are a lot of children trying to cross the
road and the traffic is stop start. I just walk into the middle of the road,
stop the traffic, let the kids cross safely.

I have done this in the past. This time I was not early for work so I
telephoned the police. The lorry had gone by the time they attended
though.

You are making wild assumptions here. The school staff that I know
are not afraid to inform parents. They regularly send out letters to
parents about road safety issues.

There is a big difference between informing parents and writing generic
"hand-out" style letters to parents. Personally I find that if you approach
somone who is illegally parked and say something like "Excuse me, sorry to
trouble you, but don't parking restictions apply to you? There is a school
here, and these marking which say "keep clear" in big yellow letters
actually mean that you are not supposed to park here because it is
dangerous". That usually does the trick!

We just need to find people who are willing and able to do this. I
think I am about the only person who would be prepared to do this! And
I am not there all the time.

But I would not expect teaching staff to be quite so bold, hence my
suggestion that they *could* approach them at parent teacher meetings and
prior to their children starting that school - but they don't, do they?
<rhetorical>

Children are educated about road
safety and they do nag their parents. Children have designed posters
which are displayed around the area. Classes get awards for the most
children walking or cycling to school. There is a strong culture of
walking and cycling here. We are planning more walking and cycling
initiatives in the near future.

Goody good good good. But you also need to go for the jugular as well, and
that means tackling Mr or Mrs F*c*wit-Scumbag and point this out to them
too. You can have all the police support, traffic calming, children nagging,
safety campaigns and posters you like but you also have to deal with the
root of the problem too and that means you need to speak to the people who
are the problem.

The PCSOs tell me that some pavement parkers actually drive at them
when they are trying to advise them not to park there!

Your experience is obviously not the same as mine.

A lot of it is down to the Head. If the head has some balls (metaphorically)
things will happen. If they don't it won't. But we seem to have gone from an
era where school Heads were in charge and to be obeyed to one where teaching
staff bleat out reasons why they can't have that authority.

It takes time to change attitudes. The tide is changing. The heads
all now want to be seen to be encouraging walking/cycling.

--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Owing to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking most articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

.

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