It's back-to-school time. Brace yourselves for the return of the usual school-gate mayhem. Tim O'Brien reports
Oh God, it's back-to-school time. Breakfasts in the middle of the night, cars crawling along dark, crowded roads, school gates blocked by some numbskull - and SUVs lining every approach road.
Question: why don't parents walk their children to school?
Answer: Because it's too dangerous. They believe their children would be run over - by parents driving their children to school.
So what do parents do? They buy the biggest SUV of all and pile their children in . . . on safety grounds.
So, before I call for a blanket ban on parents driving children to school anywhere, may I make one exception on personal grounds - myself. I know it sounds like special pleading but I am in fact a special case.
I live west of the N11 at the southern end of the Glen of the Down's in Co Wicklow. The National Roads Authority (NRA) and Wicklow Co Council came through here some years ago - you may have read about my friends who lived in the trees - and built a dual carriageway. There was to have been another road to get me across the N11 but that fell by the wayside.
Then the NRA installed a concrete barrier down the middle of the road and directed me a few miles up the road to a new bridge. Which means travelling a few miles back down again, just to get to the other side of the road. I like to think Delgany is barricaded out, rather than the other way around.
Anyway, now I have to bring a car. Even though the village school is one mile away.
Like most national schools, ours has rules about dropping children off. There's an "in" point and an "out" point. We don't actually run to gates but there is a "circulatory system" in operation.
The system stops every few seconds as each SUV releases its little John Pauls or Mary Janes. And, so, we get "playground rage" which has nothing to do with children's games. Hearts beat faster, temperatures rise and indicators seem to blink faster in the downpour. Eventually, after kisses are exchanged, the line resumes its forward inching.
May I pause here to congratulate the Motors Editor for this line in a review of a Lexus SUV: ". . . hybrid technology only adds to this effect - there's an eerie silence when the electric motors are running on their own, strange when you're creeping up on pedestrians in a big SUV." (This may indeed be my last writing gig in Motors, but Sir is assured of a warmer welcome should he ever come to my local school.)
And, what are we to make of the latest campaign from a certain Dublin radio station which offers this: "Wanna be a legend in your own school yard"? The (name deleted ) Cool School Run is your chance to be the envy of all your friends wehn (sic) you arrive at school VIP style. Travel like a pop star with the (name deleted) team in our fleet of cool jeeps and get your hands on loads of free stuff !! The run takes place every Tuesday and Thursday morning between 8am and 9am. The winners will be phoned live on air when the team arrives on their doorstep. After going on-air talking to (names deleted) they will be taken to school VIP style and delivered to their class by the team." There will be nothing "cool" about the school run should that lot turn up at my local school.
This radio stuff is, one hopes, directed at post-primary schools where children are of an age to use public transport. Yet across the State from 8am onwards, hall doors open and serried ranks of surly teenagers pour into family cars.
As AA Roadwatch bulletins get longer and cars queue to get out of side roads, the main roads quickly fill up, bumper to bumper from one set of lights to the next. Whole sections of roads become parking lots as the business life of the State's cities slowly asphyxiates. Makes you think of early retirement, the Beara peninsula, underperforming pension plans and college fees.
Isn't it ironic that in the US, that most car-dependent federation, about 30 per cent of the population want to see a total ban on driving children to school in urban areas. At least there, 54 per cent of pupils use school buses, compared with just 6 per cent in Britain.
In Britain the Sutton Trust says that a service costing taxpayers £125m a year would reduce the 40 deaths and 900 serious injuries caused annually by the school run. The trust, a registered charity, estimates that buses going from pick-up points near homes would save primary school parents around £350 million a year in time wasted and driving costs.
It wasn't possible to get figures from our Department of Transport, but there is little reason to suppose our case would be different.
A report by the Boston Consulting Group for the trust said the existing system prevented poorer parents from exercising a reasonable amount of school choice.
Which brings me back to Ireland. We may be rich enough to answer our school transport problems with SUVs, but we are poor in choice and imagination when it comes to public transport.
SURVIVAL PLAN:
1. Avoid using the car if you can. Having your shower while you walk to school saves time.
2. Offer to share with other parents. Few things relax people as much as being late because of someone else's children.
3. Allow plenty of time. Ever wonder when the "road works" actually work?
4. Park considerately and safely. How would you feel if your driveway was blocked each morning?
5. Park 100 metres from the school and walk to the gate. It might be quicker.
6. Never, ever stop on the zig zag or yellow lines by the school gate, even briefly. The hot head screaming at you will probably be the head teacher.
7. Be patient. Waving fingers out of your car window rarely helps the parent in front to get children in or out of the car. The face yelling back will probably be the same face that opens the door at a children's birthday party