An Auckland principal is pleading with parents to consider their driving habits around the school zone after being sent more than a dozen emails from concerned parents and irate residents.
Parents and caregivers parking on yellow lines, over driveways and yelling abuse have led to Auckland Transport (AT) stepping in to patrol the area and issue infringement fines.
Alan McIntyre is the principal of Owairoa School in Howick and said there are “near-misses all the time” where children at the primary school are put at risk by unwary drivers around drop-off and pick-up times.
The school with 850 students on its roll has three separate entrances which McIntyre said are constantly compromised.
He said children are no longer doing school patrols at pedestrian crossings near the entrances because parents were verbally abusing them and putting them at risk through dangerous driving.
“There’s a blatant disregard for yellow lines. People park across them and then walk their children into school and when people start taking pictures of their erroneous parking, those parents get aggressive.”
Complaint emails over the past year have piled up, one resident saying she’d complained to the council as well as police after she witnessed parents parking on the verge of a playground across the road from the school.
There are yellow lines bordering the road and the playground but that doesn't stop drivers reversing out after drop-off or pick-up.
Parents and residents 1News spoke to said “it’s an accident waiting to happen".
McIntyre said one parent had complained her “privacy had been breached” after a school patrol monitor took photos of her parking badly. The parent suggested the teacher’s carpark be turned into a drop-off zone in order to solve the traffic issue.
Police told 1News there’s been regular patrolling and work done by staff but could not say if warnings or charges had been laid over driver behaviour.
A spokesperson for AT said officers patrol a number of Auckland schools to issue infringement notices after receiving a Request for Service from “various schools”.
“More than 100 schools regionally are on our job list and we rotate through these based on availability of officers,” the spokesperson said.
AT also has an educational Travelwise programme - where schools can nominate to take part.
“With Travelwise, schools create individualised Safe School Travel Plans with meaningful visions and practical actions to create a safer and less congested environment outside the school. Our whole-school approach supports and encourages schools to incorporate road safety and sustainable travel into school culture, governance and long-term planning,” the spokesperson said.
AT couldn’t say how many infringement notices it had issued over the past year but said it can only manage parking offences not driver behaviour.
The spokesperson said AT gets about 3500 requests for service per calendar month, which is “across all categories in parking compliance". AT would not confirm if cars could legally park on the verge beside the playground.
“We dispatch officers when available and we plan for deployments through the school term on a rotational basis."
McIntyre said parking issues “have been going on for a number of years now”.
“The general theme is that half the letters I get are from people who are really brassed off and others complain that we are intimidating people by involving police."
He appreciates congestion is frustrating but students are the top priority.
“We all have a joint responsibility to keep them safe, ensuring that everyone arrives at school and returns home safely again.
“Just park a little bit further away and walk,” is McIntyre's advice.
But with the windy, wet weather becoming a regular occurrence in the city, several parents told 1News walking in the rain isn’t going to happen.
“We are trying to get to work in rush hour as well as drop off our kids at the same time. It’s unlikely we are going to park hundreds of metres away from school and walk them in the wind and rain."
SHARE ME