Fuck Cars

Schools, neighborhoods, cities, suburbs, all far too crowded.

Or live near a church and have assholes park in front of your gate despite a sign saying not to.

I live in a small town, i went to school here, and i moved back a couple of years ago. Walking to school is now considered dangerous for children. Why you ask? Because half the parents drive their children to school, which means instead of having no cars around the school, there are now 50 cars around the school at the same time that children walk to school. I feel like i' taking crazy pills.

For me this is not "fuck cars", it's more about "fuck stupid idiot trashy human beings". But you know.. If I was a kid i wouldn't like to breath in car fumes, so maybe it is "fuck cars" after all

I live less than a half-mile from my kids' school, and people ask why I walk them instead of driving... everyday I see people who live closer than I get in their cars and drive 2 blocks to pick up their kids!

Its madness I tell you

This is a case all over. At uni I rented near a elementet school (year 1-7 which is 5/6 to 12/13 years old in Norway) and it was massive driving hazards there as well. My aunt also worked an elementary school and they had to have staff patrol the drop off/pick-up area each day, and put up barriers and chicanes because of dangerous driving by stressed parents.

I now deliver my kid by foot to kindergarten and here they built a proper delivery zone for both schools and kindergarten forcing people to drop school children (that can walk alone) far off and a well planned logistical sound one for the kindergarten. Not perfect but it's something

It's also a problem that's getting worse. When I was in school in the 2000s, like 80% of the kids took the bus and half of the remaining ones (like me) came by bike. Now my niece goes to the same school and she's one of very few kids still taking the bus there. The schoolyard turns into a chaotic mess of SUVs every morning. I guess it goes hand in hand with helicopter parenting becoming normalized.

I've lived near a school, and you learn to avoid going out during drop off or pickup times. Driving, riding, walking, it doesn't matter.

It is not safe. At all.

I live in a suburban part of a medium sized US city. There is a school nearby that has similar problems.

• situated on a 2 lane collector road with bike lanes
• lots of no parking signs -they set up a bunch of cones and have crossing guards all around
• there are school zone flashers

Despite All This

• people park in doubled up bike lane/no parking area all the time and the way the cones are set up encourages it
• people swing their doors open into traffic and cross wherever they want
• during off times, the school has a sign forbidding use of their parking lot so people park in the bike lanes

Luckily, the speed limit is only 30 so when school is in letting out I take the lane and anyone that doesn't like it can choke on a bottle of tire sealant.

My city is generally responsive when enough people comment on something and in general, you are likely to get a sentence or two back no matter what you comment on. I'm afraid to comment on this because the people picking up their kids in cars outnumber the cyclists and I forsee the school holding firm on closing their lot and they'll probably quote something stupid like liability or security. Is it not also a liability if a kid steps out from behind a parked car and gets squished by an F350 Crew Cab Mega Hemi Coal Roaler? In any case, I think the more likely outcome would be accommodating the cars and moving the bikes into the road with sharrows or doing something like that.

If I was in charge, I'd put a speed table at each end of the school zone, narrow all crosswalks to the minimum acceptable distance and put the bike lanes behind a 6inch wide curb to make it more obvious that you cannot park there. I also want these lifted Ford Excursion drivers to watch us casually pedal past the traffic jam they create every single day. I'd force the school to open their lot where capacity permits and I'd start ticketing the shit out of anyone who stows up traffic in the area or parks where it is not allowed. There is a trail just south of the school that leads to a grocery store maybe 1/4 mile away. That's where the car drivers could best pick up their kids. All the tickets should easily pay for the speed tables and upgrading the bike lanes and walking paths.

There are actually a lot of ways to slow down cars beyond asking nicely with signs. And it's not just speed bumps.

The way we design our roads psychologically encourages speeding. Shitty people are out there but road design is important too.

I have a video on the tip of my tongue that I'd like to link, demonstrating this, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. Maybe later.

Edit: this one will do.

Welcome back to school kids. I hope you all had a good summer. Today we are going to play a game. It's called Frogger

Another almost guaranteed way of converting someone to the fuck cars mentality, ride a bike on the road and around traffic.

In relation to your post in the past I have worked as a parking CEO (civil enforcement officer - modern name for traffic warden)

We had to do school watches every day, covering different schools within our area and issuing fines to people that try to stop / park in areas around schools, particularly the yellow zig zags directly at the exits of the school.

The amount of abuse you got every time you were near a school, these idiots don't seem to realise you are there to try and enforce rules that help keep their children safe as well as others. Parents are some of the most entitled pieces of shit, especially around schools.

Like you say as well, most of these fucks driving to pick up their little shits live less than 5 minutes by car from the school.

Fuck them and their cars!

We walk our kids to school pretty much every day, and I 100% agree.

Almost exactly three years ago, at a school about four miles away from ours, a driver killed a seven-year-old girl on her way home from school, and the very next morning a driver ignored the signal and cut me off as I was trying to walk my own kids across the street. In the next couple of months, a city ordinance meant to improve pedestrian safety was shot down by the state because it was "anti-car." Since then, any efforts at traffic calming around schools has been slow-rolled and ignored at pretty much every opportunity. Car dismissal is prioritized at our kids' school (we've actively had to go inside and pluck our kids out of the car line at the beginning of every school year so far because they don't pay attention), bus dismissal gets second place, and this is the first year that the crossing guard has been there every day.

Literally the only positive thing that we've seen around our school is that they've reduced the road from two (very thin) lanes in each direction to only one; that has helped tremendously, but even just this morning a driver who wasn't paying attention almost hit the crossing guard as we were about to step out into the street.

I am shaking with rage even thinking about it right now. The situation is dire out there, and our elected officials are doing worse than nothing. Our school administrators are making it worse.

Talk about radicalizing. I want to start slashing tires.

The car drop off lines they have in America look like pure torture. I don't understand. Does America not have school buses anymore?

Edit: I'm also Canadian and we have school buses where I am. I don't think we have the same car lines I've heard about in the U.S.

I lived close enough to my school that I was able to walk every day. Every morning I had to deal with self-centered parents dropping their crotchspawn off at school. I nearly got run over numerous times while crossing the street- a few of which got close enough that their front bumpers touched the backs of my legs as I walked. One parent cut in front of me instead of behind me, and I was able to punch the back of their car as they sped off.

Keep in mind I was a child when this was happening. These were parents that were very nearly running over a child willingly.

in my commute there is a small school i think a kindergarten right on the exit of a highway, there atleast half a dozen "drive safely" white signs with a bunch of flowers and toys on them, around the intersection. Extra fucked thing is those are just the ones that the families still maintain...

Just wanted to throw in my reality living in a rural area and all the factors that lead into the same problem we have around here.

The walk to my middle school was 1 1/2 hours, 2 when distracted. All 4 lane highways, with no sidewalks. Bus drivers are in high demand with low pay/part time, bus routes can easily go into a 3 hour ride in the afternoon. There is typically 1 highschool per county (must keep the roster pool available for the sports teams), we're talking a 42 minute straight drive just to get there (so you can sit in trailers because they're over capacity).

They need to up the bus driver pay, de-stigmatize the position with people who are getting more than fair compensation so they can be proud of their work and a community member who very much actually, physically, is in the world of the growing citizens. Have an assistant who helps with the route and manages the adolescent children (bus shit was wild back in my day, like 3rd base shenanigans going on and I doubt it's stopped).

I guarantee you, no one having to drive through that shit-storm is enjoying or wanting that experience. Everyone's anxiety is high and they're still half asleep in the morning, with the potential to accidentally injure a child before you even get to work. Some of the counties have improved with better traffic techniques like time-regulated flow, roundabouts, and traffic assistants. But, it's still so depressing and makes you feel like you're in some industrial meat processing plant line.

It sucks either way. Having your kid get home at 6pm to start on homework (no internet on the bus, most assignments require connectivity) which can take hours, feed them, make sure they get ready for bed by 8-9, then start again at 5am because the bus shows up ass early before the world wakes up. Real public transit doesn't exist in a 80 mile radius around here, so there's really no other currently available options besides all the crappy scenarios being told that everyone rightfully hates.

I lived in an apartment in view of a school. Me and my now wife used to sit on the balcony and play a game of counting the traffic violations and near crashes. it'd easily be 10 near crashes in a 30min period during pick up times. insanity.

I pass by two schools, right next to each other, during my commute to work. There are School Zone speed limit signs that also you your own speed in warning. I always slow down to at least 30 (zone limit is actually 25).

I usually stick to ~30 because I'm on a motorcycle and I have cars ride my ass, clearly pissed off at my slow speed. To my amazement, they then proceed to angrily pull into the school parking lot and drop off their own kids.

I have to leave extra early during the school year because if I don't it takes like 5-10 minutes just to get through the section of the neighborhood that has the bus stop (which is in the middle of the neighborhood for some reason instead of by the entrance where it would make sense) because both sides of the street are lined with parents waiting on the bus in their cars and the street is only wide enough for one car to pass through at a time. They sit there and wait longer than it would take to just drive their kid to the fucking school.