Traffic lights hate you

You are a few minutes late, and every traffic light in the UK seems to know it. They are green until you reach them, and then stay red for what feels like an hour.

Kids don’t care about time

It’s a fact. They don’t understand the concept of late or early, and they don’t quite grasp that you have a job to get to. They relax and pull funny faces at strangers, while you try and juggle the burden of schedules with the expectations of the UK school system. Enjoy.

The chocolate cake phenomenon

You can fold up a school uniform the night before. Leave it on a chair. Dress your child in clothes in the morning, and everything seems to be going well. Then, just as you are about to leave the house, you turn – and your child is barefoot and covered in chocolate cake. How did this happen?

Buttered side down

Regardless of how fast you drive, how small your car, how organised you are, how much sleep you and your children have had – what can go wrong on the school run, invariably will and does. If the kids are in the car on time, the car will break down. If the car is fine, the kids don’t want to get into it. In the mornings, it seems, the world is a slice of buttered bread – and it only lands one way.

Parents parking on the kerb outside the school gates

Trying to fit a 4×4 into a space too small for a mini isn’t a good idea at the best of times – but the insistence on some parents that they have to park on the kerb outside the school gates can cause long queues and headaches for all those waiting. You sit behind your steering wheel, gripping it tightly: it took 25 minutes to get to the school – but it’s going to take half an hour before your kids are able to exit the vehicle safely.

A question to all risk managers…Want to increase road safety near schools?

Roads around schools get busy at drop off and pick up time and the hazards increase significantly: poorly parked cars, school buses, children on cycles, scooters and on foot who are more interested in running over the road to see friends than looking out for your vehicle. This guidance note is a timely reminder that journeys near schools need particular care come August and September when the children go back to the classroom.

Access our resource for risk managers here.

Published date: 17th November 2015