Parking and Collecting Children: Please use common sense

A quote from an email received this week:

"I live across from the school, and yesterday I had a car parked across my driveway at the afternoon pick up for 10 minutes with the driver nowhere in sight. Not only that, there was a baby left by herself in the back seat of the car. This is not the first time I've had this happen, and fortunately yesterday I didn't have to go out urgently so I just waited it out, but there have been other times where I have had to sit in the middle of the road and beep at drivers until I had their attention and they moved on so I could turn into my own property. I was just lucky these drivers were in the vehicles at the time. Please address this issue urgently."

Another neighbour is contacting Police with reports of parking violations, with regard to issuing tickets. 

I have appealed many times for parents/whanau to use common sense with regard to dropping off and picking up of children so that chaos does not ensue on Prestons Road. Thanks to the 95% who always use common sense.

To the 5% who don’t, often endangering others, some simple guidelines/reminders again:

· Children are able to walk a from a few dozen metres away to the gate or school crossing, you do not NEED to park within a few metres of the school

· Do not use the school car park for drop-off or pick-up

· Do not park in or across neighbours’ drives or on yellow lines… even if, as I have often been told, ‘it’s only for a couple of minutes’.

· Do not park on intersections nearby, it endangers road users and pedestrians

· Please cross at the school crossing on Prestons Road, don’t jay walk

· Please use the pedestrian entrance, not the car park

· Please don’t do a U-Turn in front of the school, it is very dangerous

It is very frustrating having to constantly remind people of these things and then having unpleasant comments sometimes made by them when they are reminded by staff. These safety considerations are there for the benefit of our tamariki and in consideration of neighbours and other road users.

Once again my thanks to the vast majority of our whanau who take these issues seriously and show common sense for the sake of our tamariki.