Continuing from https://cplusplus.com/forum/lounge/285914/


If you are in a school zone, either early in the morning when students are being dropped off or in the afternoon when they are being picked up, and you aren’t there to deliver/collect your kid(s)...

then you don’t belong there and you should know better.

If you live anywhere near a school then you know full-well the times when it is busy. Trying to travel through it at that time is an a**hole move. They’re not blocking the road — you are. You’re in their way. Get the f lost!

There is absolutely no reason you should be impatiently clogging up and driving aggressively in a school zone during those 20 minutes. (Except maybe if you are from out of town and are too dumb to avoid the school zone during those common times!)

Get yer butt up the ten minutes earlier it would take and drink your damn coffee and get out of the way before it happens. Entitled pricks.


(Obviously, no on on this forum is such a jerk, right?)

As someone who was doing substitute teaching, I don't have any reason to go early, and I'm showing up at the same time people are dropping off their kids.

Also, imagine someone going into work, and they're already leaving 20 minutes early so they can make it to work. Their only option now is to either leave 30 minutes early or be late?

I think there simply needs to be a better system for dropping kids off. Multiple lanes and one lane that's a quick in and out for drop-off and pickup. Even airports do a better job at pickup/drop off than what we have near schools.

Drop-off usually isn't as bad as pick-up, because people dropping off can be quick. People picking up end up wanting to sit there, slow to a crawl, and wait to see their child.

Once the kids leave to go home.. I do too as a substitute teacher. I have no reason to stay, I'm not getting paid to wait for traffic to die down.

I was a substitute for years. For those schools where I did not need to be in the classroom before the kids started arriving, I found no reason I couldn’t get there five minutes before they did anyway.

But, yeah, school staff have a reason to be there. I figured that was kind of a given.

2 jobs ago, I spent 5 years going through one every morning and on the way back as well. There was this crossing guard (she is still there, I saw her last month taking wife to a Dr appt) that is really taking the job seriously, blowing her whistle at everyone that dares break 20mph. Ok, I respect that. But... to this day (did I mention I went through it daily for 5 years) I can count on one hand the number of times I saw a kid in play. Meaning the kids were crossing the street and in danger if not for the guard or a parent or something. I never saw a bus, and the parents dropping kids off were not really in the flow (they diverted into the school's wrap around with minimal real impact on the traffic). The only thing holding up traffic was the flashing sign and the cross guard... probably due to some law or requirement that didn't make sense at that location.

Still, I agree.. if you can avoid it, do so. I would have had to leave an hour early to get through before it came on, though.. I had 9/5 ish hours and it was on before 8. It was easier to come in a little late and leave a little late (we could) to come through the afternoon side after it was shut off, and I did that mostly.

But, yeah, school staff have a reason to be there. I figured that was kind of a given.

Didn't seem as a given as staff are usually there an hour or 2 earlier.

I found no reason I couldn’t get there five minutes before they did anyway.

I mean yea, I could show up 2 hours earlier if I wanted to, I'm just not getting paid to. I show up around the time kids are dropped off because that's already about 25 minutes before classes start.

Well, not anymore, haven't subbed a while. One less menace on the streets.


My main argument is that we should blame the system than the drivers. The system should almost always account for human behavior, because most people aren't going to change their behavior.

The only time I've gotten stuck in airport pickup/drop off ever was when the president was going around the city and traffic was blocked.

to a degree, that is the issue. Most schools are pretty large complexes and the odds that all 4 sides of it ALL touch major 9/5 work traffic flow is low. Find the side where the 9/5 crowd does not drive, open the doors on that side and funnel in from there, put the school zone over on that street, funnel the parental traffic in a sensible way to break back into the 9/5 street after drop off...

but that isn't what we have. The schools were built in like 1952 and off the beaten path at that time, but the city grew around it in ways that make the original design a bust and no one wants to own fixing it.