Thomas' Parents please don't park on street corners Post Reply

[gemima]

I stopped at the bodyguard's cars this morning and asked them why they felt they needed to keep their engines running and their answer was 'we need to re-charge the battery or it goes flat'.  What do they mean?

[dimelda]

To:  Gemima.  Re these arrogant Royal bodyguards, I can't explain what they mean (but I'm sure others can).  Without a doubt they're being economical with the truth.  You should take photographs of the cars, ensuring you have the correct date & time details.  The local Authority might well be interested.  Since  1986, it's been an offence to leave a vehicle engine running unnecessarily while it's stationary on a road.  And since 2002, Local Authorities have been given the powers to enforce the switching off of engines when cars are stationary on the road, enabling them to issue a Fixed Penalty Notice to the driver committing the offence.  It's whether or not the local authority in your area have adopted these powers.  I wouldn't hold my breath there.  See the link below on an admirable organisation, Idling Action, trying to do something about these selfish drivers.  Good luck.
 
https://idlingaction.london/idling-enforcement/

[Genericsouthwesr]

As an Emanuel parent I too am aghast and appalled at the parents that park and drop off on the double yellow lines outside the main school gates. The reckless three point turns as the children spill out is just an accident waiting to happen. On the rare occasion I do collect my children ( in my small electric car!) I always park away from the school in the allocated bays. Most children who don’t live locally travel into school by train or bus. The catchment is wide so parents from Chiswick, Barnes, Shepherds Bush or Kennington to name a few won’t be driving to Clapham in rush hour! The perpetrators must be semi-local! Also a lot of pupils do walk cycle or scoot.

Emanuel frequently email parents asking parents not to park illegally for both safety reasons and to be considerate to those who live in close proximity to the school. Sadly as in all these cases of numerous schools there are those as someone else stated that feel that the rules simply don’t apply to them.

[HashBrown]

Good for you Gemma! And that's a good suggestion by Dimelda.

I assume that they keep the engine running because they want to keep their heating on. If a traffic warden were to just take a little walk down Battersea High Street at pick up time, he would have a field day.

I wonder if one of the newspapers would be interested in a story on how the royal bodyguards are so badly (and illegally) parked? After all, Thomas' Battersea is in the ULEZ zone

It's hard to expect the Thomas' Battersea parents to park appropriately (not on corners or in front of dropped curbs) when the bodyguards do it all the time.

[dimelda]

To:  HashBrown.  Excellent point!  I'm sure there must be NappyValley parents who work in the media, or connected to it in some way.  Perhaps one of them could blow the whistle.   But I wouldn't hold my breath - the British are so obsequiously obsessed with the monarchy, high chance that no newspaper would touch it.  Maybe Private Eye!  Maybe the Morning Star (except for the fact that noone reads it!).  I personally think that the Royal children's mother, who possibly knows nothing about it, should be alerted.   Someone who feels strongly about it, and/or lives near the school, should write to her, pointing out the facts, possibly with photographic evidence, to ask for her intervention in the matter.  Something might, just might, be done..  From what one understands, her staff are obliged to make her aware of all correspondence coming into her office (apart from hate mail etc) & as she herself purports to be a passionate champion of the environment, she might well bark out a few orders!   (Alternatively, chance would be a fine thing ...!)  One thing's for sure ...  the school Head will do absolutely nothing about it.  Good luck!

[Lulubear]

Gemima, to answer your question on the battery re-charge.  The reference to charging up of the battery would, I assume, be because if a car only ever does very short drives it can cause the battery to lose charge.  This is especially the case if driving with headlights on in early morning during the winter months.  So that problem may subside as the mornings get lighter.  

[chorister]

Re battery charging - I'm not defending them, but I bet the bodyguards' car also has a lot more non standard electrical equipment on board which needs to be kept charged.

[Evergreen]

Agree about selfish parking outside any school. Eton House parents always amaze me with their bad parking skills! The Royals will be moving on soon. Plenty of parking space at their new school.

[juliantenniscoach]

Pretty much every school especially Belleville School, where cars park on the yellow zig zags or double park.  Funny I always thought the catchment of Belleville and Honeywell were supposed to be the same size as a postage stamp?

[Harps71]

I appreciate the intention of this post and understand others' views re: shaming on social media. However, this post got the job done for the most part, as Thomas's Clapham obviously then put up warning signs on a couple of street corners near their school and this stopped cars parking on the corners of Wroughton and Broomwood Roads (where the majority of kids cross to get to the school) and on the corner of Wisley Road and Broomwood Road.

And yet, there are still some Thomas's parents who believe they should be able to park anywhere and on any street corner, with disregard for causing chaos for other cars or for pedestrians. I'm afraid that resorting to shaming on social media may be the only way to get them to consider others.

BD63 HWW – Black Range Rover
Seen three times in past couple of weeks on the same corner of Kyrle Road which is a turning point for lots of cars to get through to Broomwood Road. This morning there was a park in a designated parking bay at the very top of Amner Road, less than 10m away, and other parks down Amner Road, Kyrle Road, Wroughton Road, less than 50m away.

RN19 OMC – Black/grey Range Rover
Kyrle Road near the corner of Amner Road where a lot of cars also have trouble turning left at the best of times, let alone when a large car parks on the yellow lines there blocking the view and causing chaos.

AE17 GXM – Grey Land Rover Discovery
Corner Webbs Road near Broomwood Road at 15:35 on a Friday afternoon as school children are walking home from Honeywell and Thomas's Schools.

[Zombiedmummy]

I think the comments here attacking the Royal bodyguards for idling are pretty disgraceful. It’s obvious that they are not allowed to turn off their car engines in case they need to move fast. It is also obvious that they are not going to say that when asked. They also clearly need to park in a place which is safest for those in their charge. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows this.

These people are not chauffeurs. They are trained and brave police officers who are literally putting their lives on the line every day to protect a known terrorist target - the Royal family. I think it would be nice if they could be left to do their dangerous job without entitled, moaning, keyboard warriors, who aren’t fit to polish their shoes, abusing them for it.

[Needcoffeenow]

Has anyone mentioned contacting Parking Enforcement at the local authority? In my experience with schools the best way to stop dangerous parking is to get their number (preferably the mob number that reaches the enforcers while they are out and about), put it on your phones and keep calling it with details of dangerous parking. They may not come for a while but just one appearance is usually enough to do the job. A lot of councils also have a ‘bad parking map’ where you can click to highlight a problem junction/area. The more clicks, the more visits from enforcement - this can be very effective. Finally, why not contact the local police Safer Neighbourhood Team and enlist their support?

[NVHusband]

Most of the parents are local, yet choose to drive. These parents will also be aware of the additional air pollution they create as well as making life less safe for those that walk/ cycle. Not to mention making life unpleasant for the neighbours.

Makes sense to drive to school when in suburbia or the country… but I struggle to understand why anyone does the “school run” by car in London Zone 2. Tiny fraction will be due to special circumstance (eg. disability), but most will be due to choice.

[dimelda]

To:  Zombiedmummy.  What obsequious nonsense.   So … those of us posting on this subject are ‘… entitled, moaning keyboard warrriors’ are we ?  ‘ Not fit to polish their shoes’.   We certainly ARE entitled to complain about these ‘.. brave police officers’ (as you call them) who selfishly leave their engines on all day (despite people asking them not to).  And, unless you have inside knowledge, your assertion that they’re not allowed to turn off their engines for the entire time they’re outside the school is entirely unconvincing.   It’s a real shame that the prince’s parents havn’t been informed of their bodyguards' / drivers' arrogant behaviour … or maybe they have.  And they’re not in the least interested.  Rather like the people of the Caribbean islands (which the couple is now visiting) - where many of whom have told them that they’re not welcome. 

[chorister]

To dimelda ............ "unless you have inside knowledge" yourself your comment is just emotional claptrap.  It seems entirely likely - at least to me - that the vehicle may well be packed with electronic equipment which neither you nor I know about which needs to be kept charged.