Traffic

[debka_notion]

I drive by 4 or 5 schools on the way to work on Mondays and Wednesdays. And since I work at a Hebrew school, fairly naturally, I'm aiming to get there just before the kids do, and the kids usually go straight from their regular schools, most of which are pretty local. So I'm going by just as kids are getting out of school. Ok- so, it's likely to be busy- I can be pretty patient, so you'd think this would be no big deal. And generally, that's just how it goes. There's a little traffic, I wait, I get where I'm going.

Today, at one of those schools, there was traffic like I've never seen before. And there was Driving, if you can call it that, like I've never seen before. Several cars just started driving on the Wrong Side of the Road, in a no-passing area at that. Sure, they also horned in when there wasn't enough room to fit their cars in, causing big clog-ups because they were for a while pretty much keeping their cars across both lanes, but I thought the driving entirely on the wrong side of the road took the cake. And these are, presumably, parents, who understand the idea that children are small and hard to see from a driver's seat, and one should be Extra careful around schools.

On a crankier note: there were buses at this school, and a virtual swarm of cars. Now, elementary schools usually bus (at least in my hometown) kids who live any farther than a mile away. And kids who live almost a mile can, at least there (maybe it's different in this state, if someone wants to fill me in, I'm more than open to that) pay some minimal fee and walk to an existing bus stop and take the bus. The school doesn't seem to have a large handicapped population (and if this is not politically correct, I'm sorry)- so why can't the kids walk? If their parents can come to drive them home, why can't they come walk them home, at least stome of them? Can they All be coming straight from work? Maybe I'm just spoiled- Mom came and walked us home nearly every day for our entire elementary school education, large, heavy instruments (3 years with a trombone, the last of those with a trombone and a bassoon I think, unless the lovely sibling didn't start playing until the year after- my memory is a little fuzzy: it was part-way through a year, and I think it was the end of her 5th grade year) and all.

Comments

[belu.livejournal.com]

It may be that some of the cars don't want their kids taking the bus, but they actually live far enough away that walking wouldn't be a terribly good idea.

Also, there's people who think that they're better off driving a mile than walking a mile, and that's with normal-person legs. (I don't understand that stance—maybe they think their children are cargo.) Walking would make even less sense with small-child legs, so the parents come and pick them up.

If I recall correctly, school is on a whacked time schedule as compared with the real world. I somewhat doubt they came straight from work to school to pick up the kids.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

I don't see what's wrong with the bus- I took it whenever I lived at distances where busing was appropriate and had no trouble other than some teasing, but that was no worse than at school, so that can hardly count.

That's a stance that seems odd to me. But then, if they've done that all their lives, they probably don't have the stamina to walk for a mile. Which I think is sort of sad, barring health problems.

WEll, yes, although some folks work part-time, and might indeed be leaving work just in time to get their kids from school.

[belu.livejournal.com]

At my elementary school, the bus was a disciplinary problem big enough that our district got on the news. My parents decided that it would be better if I did not take it. Since we lived several miles outside some rural town in Iowa, the car it was. If, as was considered, my parents decided to put me in the nearby Good Suburban Schools, I would have been out of the reach of the buses. Car again.

Yeah, I get the impression that a lot of people get brought up thinking that walking is more of a recreational activity rather than an actually useful thing people do to get from point A to point B. I'm always surprised when I go back home and see how slowly my parents tend to walk. (They grew up in and near Detroit. One drives there.)

[carnilius.livejournal.com]

I never got to ride a bus to school, or to walk. We always lived outside the region where buses would pick up.. I was always jealous.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Were you a private school kid then?

[carnilius.livejournal.com]

Only through 5th grade. But after that, the buses didn't come to my area.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

This confuses me- aren't the buses for people who live too far to walk? Unless you had some special permission to go to school outside your own school district... But at least in my area, the kids who are in regional school districts all get bused- it just takes some of them over an hour to get to school, with all the stops involved. But I've never heard of someone being too far for the buses. How does that work?

In response to your question...

[spazerrific.livejournal.com]

At least for HS, it was a two-mile radius... but that's also Wellesley. Each public school system makes its own rules, and I suppose it would make sense if the radius was smaller for smaller people, and yes, if people are within the line, they can pay for the bus. If they're beyond it, they get it for free.

PC word for handicapped I believe is "disabled" or "differently-abled" if you wanna be super-PC.

Re: In response to your question...

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ours was mile and a half for middle school, 2 miles for high school.

Ahh. The difference between handicapped and disabled is what, now?

Re: In response to your question...

[carnilius.livejournal.com]

I dunno about that...it seems to me that "handicapped" is more PC than "disabled".