Why can’t parents drop their kids off on school grounds? That bit seemed more odd than pushy parents.
I assumed it’s a private school as the kids are wearing uniforms, but (some/most?) public schools require uniforms in England as well. And yes, you are not automatically upper class if you go to a private school, but let’s say you are not underprivileged.
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So the natural course of action is to hit the gas? Dude sitting on car hood means you don’t move.
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I can testify to this. Years ago when leaving a match at Twickenham, a driver tried to force his way through the crowd and I found myself in the way. For some instinctive reason of self preservation I turned round and found myself on the bonnet (English for US hood). He had to stop because there were other people in the way, and I fell off but was undamaged. Broken knees averted. However, he ended up with four flat tyres.
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Are you suggesting that someone sitting on a hood, especially during this sort of standoff, justifies driving full speed ahead and dumping them off the side of the car?
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“I had to shoot! He put a flower in my gun!”
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Pretty much all public school kids wear uniforms in the UK. This school looks like a very ordinary state school to me based on what little we can see.
I’m certainly not underprivileged, and would never suggest otherwise.
I just think that there are two false equivalences here:
- that people whose kids go to private school are upper-class twits
- that said people who to private schools would suggest this arsehole shouldn’t be punished for driving into a teacher (and nearly two kids)
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Kids lucky too.
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Let’s be clear.
Public school = high status private school, member of HMC. May have been set up by government or church. Virtually 100% uniforms.
Private school = lower status private school, may originally have been for profit. Virtually 100% uniforms.
Academy = privatised state school. Uniforms.
State school - many have uniforms.
Public school fees are currently in the £30 000 p.a. plus class, even if you get a scholarship you are from a relatively privileged background. Attendance more or less guarantees social class AB1 status.
Private schools are often day schools, fees are lower but few scholarships, still in the upper 10%, AB1someB2.
State schools - status is by catchment area, house prices act as a fee equivalent for the best ones, e.g. the “outstanding” state school attended by two of my grandchildren is in an area where house prices start at around £700 000.
I don’t know about that area but around here it would be the actual bodily harm, no licence, no tax and no insurance. Cannabis possession? Are you wasting police time?
No, but in any case this was a lower class twit. You have to be a student at Oxford on Class A drugs to avoid jail here.
Pretty much. I taught in a private school for a short time during the 1970s recession. Some of the parents were simply rich thugs.*
Not odd at all. If a safety evaluation determines that there is a risk due to parents driving in the school grounds, they do not get to drive in the school grounds. A number of London schools now have security guards and electric gates, and one reason is violent assault by parents.
*Edit - which is not to say they all were, some were exceedingly nice people. I’m just recording, I hope not trying to impose a version of reality. I find Americans really do not understand our school system or culture unless they actually come and live here - despite our 17 million idiots we are far more like mainland Europe when it comes to education than the US.
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The driver tried to enter private property first
Fixed that for you.
Seriously, I get what you’re saying. I thought the same thing. It still doesn’t justify gunning the engine and trying to run him down, or drive off with him still on the hood. A smarter man would have backed up, possibly causing him to fall on his ass (inspiring some laughter from the kids on the bikes), and then taken the car in for “damage to the bonnet” and tried to bill the school for repairs. Well, you can use “smart man” interchangeably with “dickhead” in this case, but he clearly wasn’t a criminal genius of any kind.
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If you read the story you will see he was driving illegally.
In fact the teacher was thereby trying to prevent a threat to the children under his care. It turns out that the driver was an aggressive, reckless criminal. What would you have done?
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I think I saw this guy in morning traffic.
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No, just some of us, do go on about yourself!
I now know what a measured response to a provocation in front of children is, to you.
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@Foggen, @nanopet, there’s no audio coming out of my speakers, but I sort of assumed the parent was shouting “Out of my way or I’ll run you over!”
But in any case, if you’re using your body to block a car that is nearly touching you, sitting on the hood preemptively isn’t a terrible idea. That way you won’t lose both knees if the driver goes for you.
In my kids elementary school, they had to stop letting parents drop kids off in the front drive because the parents rushing off to work were a major hazard to children and because the parents that weren’t rushing off to work would park their cars blocking the bus lanes (causing the busses to miss their next pickups) while they went inside to threaten and berate the teachers for giving their kids the grades they deserved. Totally not kidding.
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That’s clearly applause, not a suggestion.
Wait, let me guess. His defense was, “Teachers’ lives splatter.”
This is a school in Woking in southern England, where I live. It is a comprehensive school, which is to say it is a state school that does not select by ability on entry. It is part of the “public sector” but we would not call it a “public school” as in England that implies it is a private school. Don’t ask. In any case, in England a private school is usually called an “independent school”.
Around 90% of state schools in England have a uniform, it is not the mark of an independent school.
Parents should not be driving in because of congestion. In fact this school was censured by Ofsted (the school inspection body) for lack of safeguarding in the past, and the way the driver launches towards the two kids on bikes, you can see why it isn’t safe to let parents on school grounds.
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Seriously, as someone who has been hit by a car driven by a violent drunk who I was indeed trying to keep off the public roads, that’s exactly the problem, and exactly the solution.
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