The next "congestion" charge - Pay to drive kids to school!

[KillerHERTZ]

So yet another tax being introduced, upto £75 a year to have a permit to be allowed to drop off or pick up your kids from school! Again its being done based on emissions

LINK

 

[NW_Merc]

How much emissions does a challenger tank produce in Iraq? (sorry don't get me started about vehicle/fuel taxes)

 

[neilrr]

How much emissions tax are the 700,000+ flights proposed for Heathrow going to pay?

 

[PAPA]

So you have 4 kids

Do you...... A buy a large car and pay £75 or B buy a small car and make two trips, Roll on the next election, And lets give them a good slap in may, to show them whats comming.

 

[KillerHERTZ]

But any new goverment wont remove any existing tax like this would they?

 

[Mr E]

I'd be in favour of this at our village school - we have parents who drive their kids 500m to school!

Not an exaggeration either - we live 200m from the primary school and by using the path that runs in front of our house they could walk 300m. But as they choose to drive every day, they have to loop round.

And no, they are not disabled either.

Granted, some kids have to come in from 4, 5 or even 6 miles into the school and as there is no school bus service there is no option. However, the majority of the kids come from the village and would have a walk of 1000m - 1200m. It's a nightmare, and it good to see that someone has the cajones to stand up to parents for a change - just a pity they have to stick a carbon flag on it as it devalues both messages.

 

[kikkthecat]

The Yorkshire and Humber assembly have got the answer to all our problems

Or maybe not

"but in a startling conclusion, its strategists admit that, even with unlimited funding for new schemes and with projects being fast-tracked, the best that can be hoped for is that by 2021 carbon emission levels return to the 2008 rate.

So lets take more money off people then, surely that'll put everything right

 

[television]

We have a school near us where the 6th year pupils take their own cars to the school and fill up the parking spaces up for the day, it hell at shool times.

 

[Satch]

How much emissions tax are the 700,000+ flights proposed for Heathrow going to pay?

Funny you should mention that

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/23/do2304.xml

 

[Alfie]

So yet another tax being introduced, upto £75 a year to have a permit to be allowed to drop off or pick up your kids from school! Again its being done based on emissions

LINK

Its derisory because £75 a year wont put people off at all. Its just yet another tax......

How on earth will it be policed anyway?

 

[fredfloggle]

Its derisory because £75 a year wont put people off at all. Its just yet another tax......

How on earth will it be policed anyway?

Easy, there will be multi skilled agents who are empowered to issue FPN's for over full bins and vehicles dropping off kids at school.

 

[st13phil]

However, the majority of the kids come from the village and would have a walk of 1000m - 1200m. It's a nightmare, and it good to see that someone has the cajones to stand up to parents for a change - just a pity they have to stick a carbon flag on it as it devalues both messages.

I wholeheartedly agree with both points. If parents didn't drive their little darlings to school when the alternative is a 20 minute walk or cycle ride then we'd have:

1. Fitter kids
2. Less traffic congestion
3. Kids that aren't afraid of their own shadow

If it's very young kids, then what's the problem with mum or dad doing the walk with them? That's what happened when I was a kid, and it might improve mum or dad's fitness too. Oh, sorry I just realised: if they spent 40 mins twice a day walking their kids to school it'd mean they wouldn't have time to go to the gym

 

[fredfloggle]

I wholeheartedly agree with both points. If parents didn't drive their little darlings to school when the alternative is a 20 minute walk or cycle ride then we'd have:

1. Fitter kids
2. Less traffic congestion
3. Kids that aren't afraid of their own shadow

If it's very young kids, then what's the problem with mum or dad doing the walk with them? That's what happened when I was a kid, and it might improve mum or dad's fitness too. Oh, sorry I just realised: if they spent 40 mins twice a day walking their kids to school it'd mean they wouldn't have time to go to the gym

This one has "bindun" - there will be views that say that parents are frightened to let their kids out on their own, that the traffic is perhaps too dangerous, that in actual fact parents are sometimes too busy with work to spend the time to walk the kids to school.

If only life was so simple - there has to be a reason why so many parents take their kids to school rather than walk as we did years ago.

So many people who don't have school age kids seem to have an opinion on this.

 

[Alfie]

This one has "bindun" - there will be views that say that parents are frightened to let their kids out on their own, that the traffic is perhaps too dangerous, that in actual fact parents are sometimes too busy with work to spend the time to walk the kids to school.

If only life was so simple - there has to be a reason why so many parents take their kids to school rather than walk as we did years ago.

So many people who don't have school age kids seem to have an opinion on this.

We have three kids. The eldest, 16 is dropped off at friends house en route to the school for the youngest, 8. The middle one, 13 is dropped at the railway station. With two working parents, three kids at three different spread out schools there is no way any of them could walk or cycle. Picking up in the evening is fun as the eldest is picked up from the friends house when they get back, the youngest is picked up from his school with two neighbours children and then we drive home. The middle one gets the train then the bus.

When I was younger, I cycled or walked to/from school myself everyday unless the rain was torrential. Yes it kept me fit but my school was a lot nearer and crucially there were far far less cars on the road and a lot more police officers!

So £75 to keep driving. Yep I'd pay it and just notch up yet another 'I'm being taxed yet again and therefore dislike the current administraion a little more' point.

 

[BTB 500]

Our two older kids (5 and 8) walk to school and back every day, but there are certainly a good number of non-working parents who drive their kids a short distance for no good reason at all other than possibly laziness.

The other thing that astounds me is the age and size of kids that get trundled around in pushchairs rather than walking on their own two feet! No wonder child obesity is on the increase.

 

[DaveK]

Heres the argument I hate....
" I drive my sproggs to and from school because if I didn't, the kid fiddlers would get them , so I am keeping the safe "

Once home at the end of the school day, how many of these are then allowed out to roam the streets till gone midnight, causing annoyance, criminal damage and other problems ?
I take it kiddie fiddlers only come out during the going to and coming home from, school day.

 

[fredfloggle]

Our two older kids (5 and 8) walk to school and back every day, but there are certainly a good number of non-working parents who drive their kids a short distance for no good reason at all other than possibly laziness.

The other thing that astounds me is the age and size of kids that get trundled around in pushchairs rather than walking on their own two feet! No wonder child obesity is on the increase.

Well that I certainly do agree with.

I wouldn't allow my eldest daughter (8) to walk to school (when we are in the UK) which is slightly over 1/2 mile away. My reasons are compound, traffic and a number of busy roads to cross, and my possibly irrational distrust of some members of the public .

As with all of these posts, including this subject which was whipped to death a while back - we are all entitled to our own opinion and there is no right or wrong.

 

[andy_k]

our eldest goes to school on the bus they provide, we take the other in the car because school is 8 miles away. However, we always drop her off at the end of the road and let her walk down.

On the other hand, there is a woman who lives less than 300metres from the school who takes her kids down to the school in a Toyota Amazon!! It must take her longer to get them into the seatbelts etc than it would to walk down.

But school run mums are a bit special and you can never dare criticise them

Andy

 

[fredfloggle]

Heres the argument I hate....
" I drive my sproggs to and from school because if I didn't, the kid fiddlers would get them , so I am keeping the safe "

Once home at the end of the school day, how many of these are then allowed out to roam the streets till gone midnight, causing annoyance, criminal damage and other problems ?
I take it kiddie fiddlers only come out during the going to and coming home from, school day.

Depends if you let you kids (make a nuisance of themselves) play(ing) in the street .

Do you remember that poor fellow in Southampton iirc who was beaten and hounded out of his house because his name was sort of similar to a name on "the register". A load of tattooed herberts holding placards that had "paedophile" wrongly spelt, ran him out of town .

 

[BTB 500]

I wouldn't allow my eldest daughter (8) to walk to school

I should have said, my wife walks them to school ... wouldn't trust them on the roads yet.