Fisticuffs and foul language at the playground gates. Unrestrained tempers and name calling. Recently, along with the verbal scrapping, there has been an alleged baseball bat attack at bell time.
Glasgow’s schools have an indefatigable bullying problem, oft tackled by teachers and yet to no avail.
Why? Because it isn’t the children causing problems - it’s the mums and dads. It isn’t only Glasgow, either, it is a problem the length of the country.
Despite police interventions, pleading from head teachers and creative campaigns by pupils, parents are causing consternation with their careless driving around schools. It’s part appalling and part fascinating.
At schools everywhere, parents are sedulous in their determination to bring their cars as close to the school gates as possible, zig zag warning lines be damned. Residents complain of parents blocking driveways or even parking in driveways. Parents have been seen to keep their vehicles moving as their child jumps out - a drive-by drop-off. This week I spoke to a 72-year-old cancer patient who asked a father to move a van double parked outside his home. The torrent of abuse he received in return - and in front of young pupils - is unprintable.
One school used its primary five to sevens as mini traffic wardens. Imagine swearing in the face of a nine-year-old who’s asking that you make a better fist of ensuring you don’t run her classmates over.
Head teachers ask that parents leave 10 minutes earlier, park further away and walk to school. Or, preferably, use sustainable transport. They won’t. Certain drivers seem to believe the rules do not apply to them.
The psychology of driving is baffling. We feel like we are in our own personal fiefdom, ruler of all. If mistakes are made, the other driver is obviously the idiot. Our behaviours change behind the wheel, sometimes depending on car type and age.
Research from Paul K. Piff, of the University of California, Berkley, showed wealthier drivers are more aggressive towards pedestrians. We feel safe when we are not. We feel invisible although we are seen. We become aggressive while barely noticing our own ire. Modern life is designed around cars. We are devoted to our vehicles. The car is King Louie and we are all its orangutan servants.
Driving is a hugely complicated task requiring mental and physical dexterity and yet it seems mundane. Cars are killing machines and yet they are commonplace.
It is, of course, only small numbers of parents who behave in the way described but those who do put their own children and other children at risk. They cause huge levels of stress to neighbours and teachers. Partly it’s laziness; partly it’s a side effect of busy lives and inadequate transport systems and inflexible working hours. If you’re rushed, the car will always seem the best choice of travel.
Many of these parents aren’t rushed, however. Schools talk of cars parking up to an hour before the bell in order to grab the most convenient slots.
We have a society where, according to Food Standards Scotland, around one-third of children and two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. Active travel is not only a solution to crazy scenes on the zig zag lines but is a decent step in encouraging healthier behaviours. Walking and cycling need to become the norm, rather than a minority choice for the quirky, virtuous or sporty.
All the chiding and spot police checks in the world will not change these people’s aggressive attachment to their cars. An attitude shift is the only thing that will make a difference.
Cars are both horribly vulnerable and horribly destructive. For the zig zag renegades among us, it’s a thought worth prioritising.
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