See all Motoring AdviceThankfully the kids are gone back to school, which is great in one way because they’re no longer under your feet or asking what’s wrong with the WiFi every 30 seconds.
But it also means it’s time for one of the great daily stresses to rear its head again: the school run.
Here, then, are our tips and pointers for how to take the sting out of that daily grind of getting your children to the school gates in the morning, and then picking them up again at the end of the day.
Prepare yourself with plenty of time
The single biggest piece of advice we can give is to simply leave yourself more time to get the school run done. You might only live 15 minutes from the school’s gates if you drive there at quiet times of day, but when everyone else has to do the same thing at exactly the same time then immense congestion can build up – doubling or even tripling the journey’s duration in the process.
This means you cannot realistically leave home at 8.30am and expect to drop the kids off at 8.45am. You’re going to have to leave at 8.15am or even eight on the dot, and yes – that means trying to get your children up even earlier each morning and then force breakfast down them. But it’s better than being stressed out because you’ve got one minute to get to school and you’re stuck in a massive traffic jam. So simply budget more time for it.
Cycle or walk if you can
It might seem odd for a website called Carzone to be advising you of this, but if you live close enough to the school, perhaps driving your kids there is not the best bet – instead, consider whether you could walk them to school, or whether you can all get on your bikes. It’ll make all of you healthier and fitter, it’ll save money and it’ll avoid you getting caught up in the traffic snarl-ups around school every morning and every afternoon.
Park further away
We’ve all seen and heard of those times where frazzled parents (or maybe lazy ones, we’re not judging) simply stuff their cars anywhere they can near schools to either drop off or collect their kids, and it’s not only inconsiderate to either double-park your vehicle or shove it on double-yellow lines when you’re in a hurry, but it can also be unsafe – for yourself and everyone around. So even if you can’t dump the car and take the bikes in the morning, perhaps consider parking a little further away from the school and walking the last 500 metres or so. It won’t take that long, and it’ll make it easier, and safer, to park your car securely to get your kids out.
Drive slowly
One of the things it’s all too easy to do if you’re running late is become fixated on the clock, to the point you’re not paying attention to how you’re driving – or, alternatively, you’re desperately trying to claw back lost seconds and minutes by flexing your right foot a bit. Well, don’t. After all, the clue is in the title: this is the school run, so there are likely going to be hundreds of children on or near the roads in the vicinity of the building. And children, especially ones playing with or talking to their friends, don’t always have the greatest sense of road awareness. You should never speed in urban areas anyway, but definitely don’t exceed 50km/h near a school – and in actual fact, in a lot of areas of the country there’s a 30km/h limit enforced near schools at drop-off/pick-up times.
Consider lift sharing
One very simple way of at least reducing your school-run requirements during a week is to find another parent or parents who live near you or on your regular school-run route. If you can befriend them and offer to split the duties of driving your kids and their kids to school during the week, you’ll at least halve the number of times you have to deal with the horror of the school run.
Just be late
Our last advice is this: even if you ignore everything we’ve said above, or if you don’t think some of it is in any way practicable, and you still find you’re not going to meet the times for dropping your kids off or picking them up from school, just accept your fate without doing something daft behind the wheel. If your kid misses a few minutes at the start of school and you have to apologise to a teacher, or you’re a few moments late picking them up, it really doesn’t matter that much – the staff at school should understand and be tolerant of it, as long as you’re not doing it each and every day. And being a few minutes late on the school run is far preferable to either speeding in the vicinity of a school or worse, driving in a manner that involves you in an incident with some other road user.