The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment
collegetowns.substack.com
collegetowns.substack.com
A small win in our family was in my son's final year of elementary school when he finally decided to try walking home 1.5 miles; that Spring was a delight for him. He was properly decompressed and had logged a minimum amount of physical activity for good sleep and all the rest.
Pay for the buses! Build the greenways! Normalize walking! And stop worrying about abductions for the love of gawd!
Happened to my coworker: kids were playing outside and a neighbor called the authorities on them. Not clear if they really thought the kids were in danger, or just did it out of spite, but what ensued was a nightmare of CPS calling the workplace and a few follow-up house visits. The sad part is everyone involved can turn around and claim "we were worried about the children" and use that as a shield for whatever overzealousness or maliciousness may hide underneath.
The worst part is that someone would thing this is the appropriate thing to do rather than observe the kids and in any case approach them and ask if they’re OK. The US has grown a culture of “don’t get involved” cowards hidden behind the legal system.
This is one of those things laws are great at. Delete the power of idiot Karens and the culture will return to normal.
It works for Utah (and to a point, Texas); it can work for your polity, too.
When children are at far greater risk of abuse and abduction by concern trolls and the State, and they very much are in New World countries, your society is broken.
As a mandatory reporter if I don't report such a thing I can be put in prison. Many activities now make all adults mandatory reporters (only mandatory reporters are allowed to go camping with scouts). I'm specifically told not to think, if there is any possibility I must report it and let the experts figure out if there is a problem or not.
This of course means the experts have to spend a lot of time/effort investigating where it is obvious there is nothing but they have to get enough evidence of that to close the case. This time is taken away from all the kids that really need help. Note that I have no idea how many kids who need help are discovered this way.
Change requires someone that doesn’t accept the status quo
(I don’t have kids, but hope to have some in the future, so this is me talking out of turn)
I grew up in the 70’s where after maybe eight we had pretty much free rein. I rode my bike several blocks away and crossed two busy four lane roads to get candy at 7-11.
The world is no more dangerous now than it was then, and yet here we are, with parents being treated like criminals for letting their kids play in their own front yard.
It's a lot safer than the 1970s in most places.
Like any reality TV, you're only seeing the story they want you to see.
Nobody should be gauging reality based on what you see on reality TV shows.
Edit: Occasional parts of the show are the camera people trying to avoid the kid who has turned and is walking right toward them.
1. Neighbors and friends are notified in advance. "If you see my daughter and she looks lost, please help her, she is doing an errand."
2. The destination is usually notified. "My daughter is coming to buy rice, let me know if she isnt there in two hours."
3. This practice is somewhat old-fashioned and rural. Many parents wouldnt consider it today.
Remember, the show was aired to a Japanese audience. If it were universal, it would not be worth televising.
It's actually impressive that you can entertain yourself at 3-4 years old.
My perception of time at that age would have been such that I'd probably be very fearful of being abandoned if left alone for more than 2-3 hours.
But kudos to him.
They also literally had a camera and crew on standby while also blocking off streets (off screen).
Push this out thirty years. One set of kids was navigating the real world since they were 4. The other has been mollycoddled with overparenting and screen time. Which cohort do you think will be happier, better adjusted and better off?
Then realise that it's not uncommon to see grade schoolers taking the subway to and from school in New York.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgBne2KTlDUyxLPg3oalg...
We live about a mile from his current school, so he rides his bike whenever the weather permits. He's always in a good mood when he gets home.
I think it's funny that when he gets older, he'll be able to say that it was uphill both ways since we have a sizeable hill between home and school.
I only got dropped off if it was raining (that can be quite severe and thunderstorms are common) or if I was so late that I couldn't make it. In the latter case, I walked home.
Four years later, my school was miles away. No choice but dropoff lines (private school, no bus service). Had I been in the public school system, I would have needed to bus or be dropped off for junior high (that year and two after it, ~4 mi/6.5 km away traveling on and crossing multiple arterial roads without bike lanes or sidewalks for most of the way), but could have walked/ridden/driven myself to high school.
A lot of it will look something like this [1].
In England, it's actually somewhat unusual to have any space between two homes. Semi and fully detached homes command a fairly high price.
Roads were also not built for cars, so they tend to be much narrower than what you'd find in the US. All that means you'll find a much higher population density. You can even find a bunch of cobblestone roads without much effort.
I'd also say that cities are FAR more walkable than they are in the US. It's almost the reverse of what it is here, it can be easier to walk to the store than drive simply because there's a billion little pathways that lead everywhere.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraced_houses_in_the_United_...
It's close enough for a 5-year-old to cycle, which is my point.
The impact this has on the quality of life of everyone, but particularly those that can't/won't drive, is enormous.
While it's a lot of parental idiocy, please do consider that lack of enforcement action around bullying is also part of the answer.
i agree a little bit. But at what point does the “growing up” part happen? you know…when they turn 18, and have to get a real job (or go to university), doing things that are uncomfortable and maybe not fun?
The process of growing up and becoming more mature is accomplished by challenging yourself and pushing boundaries, to grow as a person.
i guess im saying, it depends. its not as black and white as you suggest. Is the fear irrational? Maybe therapy would help. Or a buddy to walk home with. But you need to _somehow_ help kids grow independent.
The end goal is to create a happy, fully functioning adult.
I got this kind of reaction from my son for all kinds of things I made him do by himself that made him uncomfortable. Now that he's 18, he thanks me for it and wonders why all his friends are so entirely unable to do almost anything out in public without help.
Just like all security theater, it's easy enough to get around. All you need is the same looking card and the identifier. Most of the time, that's just the kid's name on the card. Some color code the card by class grade as well.
I know this as I was helping a friend scoop their kiddos up from school, and they just sent me to the school with the card. Nobody questioned who I was. They just saw the card, radioed the name, and the kiddos were waiting at the curb when I eventually crawled up to the spot. Since the kiddos expected me, there was no "who is that guy" situation. Otherwise, just fake a card and get a prize is how lame this setup is
What I'm not fine with is there is no bus service for the 4 year old, we have to drive her (I bike, but it isn't a great route - we have to cross a busy 4 lane)
> In fact, in 2022 only about 28% of US students used the school bus to get to school.1 Using the school bus is trending down, as shown in Chart I. In 1969, about 38% of students used the bus, similar to 2009 with 37.5%, and further dropping in 2017 to 36.5%.
In other words, for nearly half a century, the percentage of students taking the bus only fell by 1.5%, and then five years after that, it fell by an additional 8.5%. It _might_ not be covid, but clearly something became a factor between 2017 and 2022 that wasn't at least as far back to 1969, and I feel like it's the obvious hypothesis that would need to be addressed first.
My kids school worked like that and it was still a mess, primarily because the parents were too stupid to follow the rules as to how to park their cars. I was set up so that everyone parked in parallel rows ||||| but the ones on the right were closest to the exit, so a bunch of people would pull into those rows to the point that they'd wrap around behind the other rows ___| and prevent people from getting into those rows. It was stupid and the school would send out notices and have employees walk down to the end of the row and tell people to move to the next one but it never stayed fixed.
This sums up all of the school pickup problems I see and/or deal with daily.
I also see many parents making dangerous decisions, most of which fit into the “I’ll go now” category, including accelerating quickly to get to the crosswalk before the kids crossing the street do. Just this school year, I’ve seen multiple near misses, with kids jumping back onto the sidewalk to avoid being hit by a parent who just picked up their own kid.
The system you describe isn't necessary to cause the traffic. It's not the root cause.
When I was growing up kids within a mile of the school would walk themselves to school and back home with very few exceptions, often starting with first graders. But even a half mile is a long enough distance that many busy parents in the suburbs would choose to drive it rather than walk it four times a day.
Then sometimes, they leave their car and go in the school and we are trying to home or leave and they get angry with us!
Parents: It's never ok to block somebody's driveway! Residents: It's not illegal for people to park on the street in front of your house (assuming they aren't blocking your access of course)
And if you want to just do a drive by pickup, sure, no worries, stop in the middle of the street (with cars either side), and have your kids younger sister hop out, leaving the car door open, and go wander down the slope to help her brother with his equipment and carry it back up the slope. No-one else is using the street or lives there, after all, so they can wait a few minutes. Bonus points if you get belligerent with them or flip them off for being "impatient".
And the roads are limited by the school's ability to acquire land.
And no reasonable school is ever going to set aside any more land for a car line than is absolutely necessary that could otherwise be used to provide more school building/field.
The parents that arrive early but have kids that are not ready to be picked up is precisely why the queues get out of control. At least with this method the cars are moved along much faster. If a car arrives in the queue but the kiddo is not yet found, when the car reaches the front it is asked to move to a holding spot out of the queue--much like fast food places do when your order is going to hold up everyone else in line.
If three miles sounds like not a big deal, it certainly is when you have short legs, a backpack full of books, and uncooperative weather. I was lucky enough to walk to/from school for most of my schooling. It was only around one mile and it still took 30 minutes. As an adult I would probably balk at a 90-minute commute.
80% of kids live too far away for walking to be feasible.
Many should be able to walk almost as fast as loading up the car, waiting in the queue, etc.
Do they? What's the citation for that law? Who are the schools dismissing the kids to when they walk home by themselves?
Seems like a fine balance to me.
Schools (EDIT: feel the) need to dismiss the kid to someone. That could be another parent, in the case of carpooling. It could be a bus driver. The root problem is parents chauffering their kids to and from school.
"Back in my day" the bell went and we walked out the gate and went home.
Do they? What's the citation for that law? Who are the schools dismissing the kids to when they walk home by themselves?
I know I’m behind the times, but I was surprised recently when, at an elementary school in the US, they showed me painted lines on the floor of the classroom, indicating the zones out of the line of fire for somebody shooting through the small, jail-like window in the door… apparently they train the babies on this.
I wonder what led up to a system like that—overcompensation for a really big mistake in the past? Abstract fears? The genuine wishes of the parents?
(Edit: looks from sibling comments like this [the pickup line technique] might be a hangover from the excesses of the COVID times…)
It all seems overdone and ridiculous, but when you get a phone call from your child as they sprint from the school building to the safety of the woods due to shots fired in the building, you're glad they did prepare for the "when to stay" and "when to run" decision...and then after you realize that it's even more ridiculous that they had to use that training.
That was the longest couple hours of my life, but knowing that the kids got the f** outta there made it a bit more bearable.
Of course we don't get to just choose innocence and be surprised by a style of evil behavior over and over again. But I wonder also sometimes if, just as suicides can inspire people who hear about them, large-scale and permanent institutional response to kids-shooting-classmates gives form and legitimacy to that avenue of acting-out, when disaffected kids think about acting out.
The room was shocked into silence when she said "oh, and there was the time at my elementary school..." and had another experience of guns at a school.
We had been surprised by this:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/08/one-in-15-amer...
If something happens and you didn't do everything people imagine could have prevented it, you'll be fired, you'll be sued, and your name will be dragged through the mud.
If you take a bunch of unreasonable precautions and nothing happens, you're fine.
I'd almost bet nobody sued them. (I'll extend: I'd be surprised if a parent has ever won such a case.) An idiot parent made a stink at a PTA meeting and nobody could be bothered going head to head with Karen.
Our family suffers this insanity, too. This is one of the few things my spouse absolutely refuses to budge on: she won't let our child walk, bicycle, or even take the school bus to school because of vague "danger" that the news media is pumping into her. School is only 3 miles away and we live in a peaceful rural-to-suburban area. The kid could walk that distance at midnight and not be even remotely at risk. No facts, statistics or reasoning works.
Have you two ever tried walking along the road at around the same time? A calm walk along the same path your kids would be taking would put me at ease about the situation if I was in the same spot.
I'm not a parent, so I don't know what I don't know; but, I've observed so many kids being shuffled between school, events, "play dates" where it is harder to build deep relationships outside of the parent's sight. Everything is being curated to "ensure" the kids are safe or on the "right" path.
I understand that we live in a different world, but I really do feel that its to the detriment of the kids.
Do we, though?
Kidnappings have been dropping steadily for decades, though maybe it's because kids are indoors more often now. Though FWIW, most kidnappings are from an insane relative, not the random guy promising candy in his van.
I was allowed to play outside unsupervised when I was only 9 years old in 1991, though maybe being on the Keflavik, Iceland US Navy base played a role in that.
Yes we do, and it's covered in the article.
It's not kidnappers. It's distance to school.
80% of kids live too far to walk. It's not that their parents are afraid of kidnappers, it's that they literally cannot feasibly walk to and from school every day.
And yet, even for students who live within 0.25 mile of school, a minority walk.
People are fucking nuts and are driving around in these oversized vehicles with their phones in their faces. You can very casually, very trivially observe this any time you want by simply walking down a semi-busy street and looking at the drivers as they go by.
What we did have was the sixth grade kids acting as the school safety patrol. Those kids would be dismissed 5-10 minutes early, walk in pairs to pick up these bright orange flags, and then fan out around the school to a number of intersections where they were trained in how to be a crossing guard.
It made it safer for even the littlest kids (I walked to school by myself for half day kindergarten in the 80s) both at the crossing and along the roads because you had kids watching kids.
Today my kids’ school has one adult they hire to work about 90 minutes in the morning and afternoon to watch one intersection at the middle school and one at the elementary school. Would be much easier to have kids do it.
In 1969 only about 30% of kids lived too far away from school for walking to be a realistic option.
In 2009 (and today) that numbers is around 80%.
Walking to and from school is great if you can do it.
Most people cannot do it.
Because the article is comparing the past with the present, I am curious what parents were doing in the 90s in your area? And, what are parents doing nowadays?
I'm assuming, either car or bus. And I can't imagine that would have changed since the 90s unless there used to be a school much closer.
I wonder if this also takes into account families choosing to send their kids to schools farther away. In particular, sending them to private or charter schools that are farther away.
I would argue the primary cause is an attempt at "school optimization"; the choice to attend the "better" school over the closer school. Also, standardization of schools has decreased with the great variety of charter, private and magnet schools now, increasing the reasons to skip the local school. Personally, I think standardization is best. You could make the same argument about how people choose colleges.
It's also fashionable for parents to choose a school across town for arbitrary reasons in order to signal that they care more about their children (in my opinion). We have tried advocating for the local options and the positives it has had for getting to know others in the community but most don't even consider.
I'm lucky to live in an older neighborhood with an elementary school, middle school, grocery store, and a few other shops. There are also safe ways for kids to cross from adjacent neighborhoods so there is still a lot of autonomy for the kids getting to and from school.
With less people putting housing pressure in cities, of course you get unbuilding of houses in the cities
The article does have a chart that shows distance from their school. I'm curious if there are closer schools that parents chose not to let their child attend. I have known a couple people that drive miles away to drop their kid off to private schools when they have a public school a mile away.
Where I grew up, you had multiple smaller elementary and middle schools eventually feeding into a larger high school.
This. I would have let my kids walk to school, but one of the intersections would have been totally unsafe.
Edit: no one told these parents to drive up for pick up like a drive-through. In most cases, it is a choice. You can opt to park like a normal person and walk up. This article is absurd. Most of these parents are too lazy to walk 5 minutes. I’ve seen parents show up 40 minutes to be first in queue…just so they don’t have to get out of their cars. Makes zero sense.
Walking home from school in many areas is perfectly safe. In other areas it's not. Making blanket statements or restrictions without context doesn't make sense.
The article is literally about how location effects are driving the changes.
> Pick one. If you knew the statistics on kidnapping in the US, you would not think of this as a “life-style” choice.
Child abduction is extremely rare in the United States.
You might be confusing sensational headlines with statistics. It's common to report missing children or parental disputes as kidnapping, which people conflate with children being abducted off the street
Here's an article about it with some real statistics from the FBI: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-missinggirl-dat...
For some perspective: The number of children abducted by strangers in the United States every year is similar to the number of children who die from head injuries from riding a bike: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/
More people in the United States die from lightning strikes every year.
Building primarily low-density car-dependent suburbs is a choice. Building horribly oversized car infrastructure is a choice. Not building bike or pedestrian infrastructure is a choice. Building one megaschool instead of a handful of smaller local schools is a choice.
People voted to have slightly lower taxes and spend a few hours a week waiting in the pickup line. That's a lifestyle choice, even if they weren't aware they were making it.
You keep accusing other people of living in a bubble, but you're indexing your entire experience on to anecdotes of where you grew up as an individual experience.
Child abduction by strangers is extremely rare: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-missinggirl-dat...
Where was this? Most places in the US are not this susceptible to random violence. In the suburban city I grew up in, I'd walk home from school and I never saw a firearm in public when I was a kid, aside from those carried by police.
I live ~1 mile from the local school complex (primary, middle, high all share a gigantic piece of land, though are separate full-size schools). You literally don't have to cross a street to get there from my house - it's all neighborhood walking paths and there's a short underpass at the one road. Yet, kids are not supposed to walk. There's a bus, which isn't the end of the world. Except in the time it takes to wait for the bus, you could walk most of the way to school. And 1/4 of the parents drive their kids anyway.
It's completely absurd.
Of course, I walk the ~1 mile to my office in the other direction and most of my coworkers think I'm a loon. So, I guess this shouldn't be surprising. Americans are just hard-wired to drive even the shortest distances. We've done such a piss-poor job with urban planning and transit design that 3+ generations of Americans think anything but a car is unthinkable (literally, I don't think it crosses their minds).
According to who?
Reading these comments reminds me that America is a big place and experiences are very different from one location to the next. My closest school has hundreds of kids walking to and from through all the neighborhoods if you drive by during morning or afternoon hours.
My last in-office job had numerous people with 20-40 minute walks as part of their commute (except in rain/winter). We had people who routinely biked 10+ miles to the office.
It's not "Americans are lazy". It's the people you're around.
Using a monthly prevention rate of 0.9–1.4 deaths[0], a ban could result in 10–17 additional fatalities annually per monitored corridor.
So, after how many bonus deaths will Republicans be held liable?
0. https://ssti.us/2024/03/11/speed-cameras-lower-speeds-and-pr...
Parents could get together and volunteer to do crossing duty or hire a private crossing guard, it probably wouldn't even cost very much.
They are probably professional engineers who can lose their license if anyone discovered that there have long been known road designs that prevent this. It will take some research, but the law is on your side to have them dismissed for cause if enforcement is all they are relying on.
When I hear these stories about how children in USA go to school, I am always astonished.
In Europe, my parents took me to the school one single time, for the first school day, when I was 6 years old. Everyday after that I have gone there and come back alone, for a walk of about one mile and a half. Several years later, I continued my studies at a more distant school, to which I was going alone using the public transportation of the city, by bus, the same as most of my colleagues.
Even during the 1st grade (i.e. at 6 to 7 years old) any child would have considered very shameful to be brought to the school by their parents, as an indication that they would have been somehow helpless or handicapped.
As children in such a situation, we would have a lot of fun as pedestrians to be a nuisance to the cars that drive on the road, too. :-) Having this perspective, I rather think that the reason why sidewalks are built is because of the complaints of car drivers.
I used to dream of walking just 4 miles to school.
I had to walk SIXTEEN miles in the wet, cold snow AND pay teacher for permission to come to school!
(edit: It's the Four Yorkshireman sketch. A joke, people...)
When I were a lad I used to walk sixteen miles just for a kick up the arse and then have to walk home again to work under t’spinning machine at t’mill for the other 14 hours of the day.
Although, that specific picture’s grassy area is sufficiently large that there is room to walk far away from the cars.
That is why an SUV is chosen over a minivan.
Plenty of space to build a separated bike path for minuscule cost, though.
Especially noted:
> Overall, rural counties had the highest rate of gun deaths.
The bus service is completely unreasonable. They shopped it out to the lowest bidder and the stops are all in terrible spots on busy streets. It also takes longer to sit and wait in the cold with a 6 year old than it would be to just drive there and back.
1st grade is probably too young to wait alone. But by 3rd grade I'd expect a child to be able to bundle themselves up.
I don't know how your bus driver would handle it but even back in the 80s, some parents would drive their kids to the bus stop and let them wait in the car until the bus came. As they got older, like 5th or 6th grade, they would be taught to dress warm for the wait.
One time the bus arrived a full hour late and the people we could call to ask where it was had already went home. I was considering calling the police. Turns out the bus was late because they didn't have enough busses and it had to complete a different route first.
School has been enshittified.
What a mess.
[0] https://reason.com/2024/11/11/mom-jailed-for-letting-10-year...
Here I am, in Germany, my kid goes to school by himself since second grade. Most of his classmates started to walk, bike, or take the train, bus or tram themselves at 3rd or 4th grade. Beyond 6th grade, it's considered a spoiled baby.
My son's school was about 250 meters from his mom's house. Due to the NIMBY way the neighborhoods were built, he would have had to ride his bike or walk 2.5 miles on busy roads w/o bike lanes to get to his mom's house. The direct route was 2 dead end roads that should have connected the neighborhoods together. But instead, there was ~30m of dense forest marked with "no trespassing" signs.
This meant that me and his mom had to wait in the school line rather than him being able to walk/bike to and from school. Even when I had custody, I would have much rather picked him up from his mom's house than school because the line was miserable.
I was so happy when he got his license and was able to drive himself.
As population and (perceived) facilities increased, the schools built new buildings in farmland or other wide open areas on the outskirts of town to have more room for stuff like stadiums, huge auditoriums, bigger playgrounds. The land may be cheaper but the new high schools are almost more like college campuses vs. stately buildings in the middle of town.
There's an appetite for more and we've relocated schools to make more room not save money.
That linked article is incredible to me (considering how much I used to walk around at that age).
If our culture becomes so backwards that you will actually be criminalized for letting your kids move around independently, then of course we'll be doomed to car pickup lines forever.
To help support that, it should be expected that on the first day of school, police officers will ride bikes along all the routes students are expected to cover --- to help support that, bring back truant officers and put them on bicycles.
Even though my family has the flexible schedule to handle dropping kids via car, by using the bus system I help support the community and others who might not have that flexibility.
Plus, the school bus is one of the first places a kid might be without (much) adult supervision. A tremendous growth opportunity, where you learn how to deal with discomfort, difference and drama.
Further, schools near me won't allow many children to walk home even within a safe walking distance with parental consent for (and I quote) "liability reasons". Absurd.
Where I am the school line is mainly to prevent kids from running between the cars; anyone who has been authorized can just be let free and walk home - some of whom just walk a block to where their parent is waiting.
Currently we're a 39 minute walk from school; a little long for a kid at age 8.
We're like a 10 minute drive, in traffic with lights etc, and I think basically a 10 minute bike ride. There isn't a good biking system because the roads are set up like a grid, and there's no walking path through it.
I think for biking culture to thrive you need bike only or bike/ped paths, otherwise you end up having to bike on busy streets or stop at many intersections.
I'm going to try to organize something like a mini bike bus in my neigborhood.
It’s the same all over Europe.
The distance to school is a social choice. But in the US, kids can’t even get off a school bus without a parent waiting
Fear culture and security theater
Me? I picked the public elementary school 10 minutes of walk away instead of the private one that is 20+ minutes of driving. I don't want everyone in the household gets frustrated pretty much every Mon-Fri.
Secondary school is going to be a bit of issue. We do have one that is adjacent to the said elementary school but it is not very good. But then my son would be 11 years old by then so hopefully he can just take the bus.
Unfortunately we moved during high school and lived something like 15 miles from the new school; at least there was a bus.
The idea of common spaces in American cities largely died during & after Covid. Anything you did in public (gyms, eating out, public transport, apartment common areas) was suddenly prey to whatever idea a politician had that morning. I think we all remember walking into a restaurant with a mask on, to promptly take it off as soon as you sat down. At the same time as these guidelines were being piled on, basically all laws below murder stopped being enforced. So you had to negotiate a bus full of drug addicts shooting up and riding for free, or leave the sidewalk because it had been taken over by a tent city.
Personal transport is required in America, the places with the infrastructure to avoid it dont have the capacity to govern (any big city). The places with the governing capacity (suburban, rural areas) dont have the infrastructure.
Busybodies seem to call because of "what if" things. That child's actual danger is the busybody.
[0] https://reason.com/2024/11/11/mom-jailed-for-letting-10-year...
As a mandatory reporter, my instructions are if there is any possibility report and let the experts figure it out. There is no harm to me if I report and nothing is found. However if they discover something and find that I was in contact with the kid in question they will investigate: if there is anything that I should have seen I'll be arrested for not reporting it.
There is always the possibility for anything, so that cannot be the bar.
> It’s not just a message to parents, it’s the broader society.[...] A mom was recently arrested for letting her 10-year-old son walk into town. These types of incidents only fuel the school car pickup culture
Once Dad bought a new car and surprised us by not picking us up in the one we recognized?!
Around 5th grade I had some sort of trauma-drama on the soccer field, needed to call in Mom for a pickup. I didn’t know what a busy-tone sounded like despite figuring out the payphone on campus. I held the receiver to my ear for 10 minutes anxiously hoping Mom would answer.
I believe the rare school bus rides were field trips, and once my friend and I were in the rear, frantically waving and smiling at every other motorist to see how they’d respond, and we failed to cause any accidents
I feel it was a curse on Mom to put so many miles on Soccer Mom Car. Parents couldn’t hardly wait for our maturity and licensing!
If you let your kid out roaming, walking home from school, and the child causes a minor issue, you get the wrath of "Why aren't you watching your kid?"???
So we've developed this culture around ensuring that the child is accounted for at all hours of the day. Drop off, pickup from school, included.
> Note: I used AI to create this image rather than pull one from another site without permission.
I don't have kids, and while I've seen pickup lines from time to time, I have very little first-hand experience with them. So my brain reacts to the image:
- Is this image a realistic representation?
- If it is, I have no first-hand knowledge to verify it
- If it's not, I have no way to know without going and looking for images myself
- If it is, it's undermining the content by representing something real with something fake
Artwork/illustrations/visualizations are often critical when communicating via text. But I think that when someone is writing about a factual matter - a real phenomenon that is occurring regularly - using fake imagery is just the wrong choice.
I went to school in a semi-rural school district, one of the largest in the state by area. I just checked Google Maps and the high school is 13 miles away, 16 minutes by car (much of it highway), and maybe a half hour by school bus if I remember correctly. It could be a bit tedious, but it wasn't a terrible commute by any means.
> Parents are not simply choosing to drive their children to school because it’s fun to sit in a long line. It is becoming more of a necessity because schools are more spread out than before, or at least families are living further from their schools.
Necessity? I don't see what's wrong with school buses. They're just about the only practical form of mass transit in rural areas. They work for all ages, in any weather where the school is open at all.
The buckets were chosen because 3 miles is farther than you'd reasonably expect kids to be able to walk to and from school every day. They say this right under the chart.
It's not helpful to do chest-thumping to compare whose farthest away from school when the entire point of the section is that 80% of people fall into that bucket.
> Necessity? I don't see what's wrong with school buses. They're just about the only practical form of mass transit in rural areas.
Again, you've missed the point of the article. In cities, students are spread out in all directions. It's not feasible for a bus to loop around an entire city to pick everyone up when they're spread all over.
Why is it expected that kids should be able to walk to school? Seems like that’s a pretty blinkered view by someone who never leaves the city? In a rural district, very few kids can do that, and that’s why there are buses for everyone else.
Also, why wouldn’t school buses work in a denser area? That’s why they have multiple school buses doing multiple routes.
All the usual arguments for mass transit should apply for school buses, too. Density should make providing bus service easier, not harder.
Because we typically don't let kids drive. If they're able to walk to school then they can walk themselves to and from school without the help of an adult (even one driving the bus), once they are responsible enough to.
It's also a way for a parent to think somehow they are doing the right thing and get a little enjoyment in their head (despite the time involved or wasted) 'I am a good parent'. Doesn't involve as much effort as other things a parent does (or should do) it's simple (other than the time).
[0] Our current bike route from home to school isn't optimal -- too many busy streets where drivers routinely run reds. That's a rant for another day...
It is, but like the pickup line, it’s also a national embarrassment. Half the buses in my town are ancient and belch black smoke like a semi rolling coal.
I was never enrolled in any as a kid and never really expected for my kid to be, because I thought parents were the motivating factor for kids to get into a bunch of activities, but IME they aren't. My kid loves her activities and picking her up to shuttle her directly to it is a lot quicker than using a bus or walking.
(TLDR: It's Prop 13's fault)
https://www.kqed.org/news/11980715/why-dont-more-bay-area-ki...
>California has fewer school buses than in other parts of the country. A survey conducted by the Federal Highway Administration found that nationally, almost 40% of school-aged kids ride a school bus. In California, that number is only 8%.
>Like so many questions related to school funding and services, the answer to Winters’ question has roots in the passage of Proposition 13
For those familiar with the Bay Area - Fremont: https://fremontunified.org/about/business-services/transport...
California ranks 19th in the country in per student spending -- so it's not wildly out of place compared to the rest of the country.
Moreover, Florida bus rates are at 30% and it ranks near the very bottom in per-student spend.
I think you should look elsewhere for the low bus rates than funding.
How children lost the right to roam in four generations
The most rambunctious, violent, harrowing and underpoliced part of the day
Not offering a solution, just an observation
I don't want to blame it on diversity but the example provided in the article is a homogenous-culture society with high trust.
Make tank-like trucks and SUVs illegal to manufacturer is a good start. It's going to be tough to compete with homogenous first-world countries on culture and crime.
I've read some timed ago that drowning in swimmingpools was the leading cause of deaths for kids. So maybe the mandatory protections (fences) there did help. So more schoolbuses could help with their pickup line crisis.
In Germany in our schools such pickup lines are explicitly forbidden. Kids must go by themselves (bus or bike). Helicopter parenting is frawned upon, and recent right-wing rumors in Berlin amongst silly parents about organized Rumanian abduction trucks are actively fought. Dangerous fakenews on social media, probably Russian.
The best part is, you won't have to subject your children to marxists and people that look like literal clowns that fell face-first into a tackle box.
I live in a well-to-do community where many kids are chauffeured to school. The problem isn't just the parents' wasted time. It's the congestion and lack of agency this behaviour bestows on children. Head to head, I'd bet the kid who can navigate themselves to and from school outcompetes the one chauffered in a robotaxi in novel environments.
It really is a mental problem more than anything else. The inability to imagine a virtuous public realm welcoming to children, conjure its value in one's mind eye, and commit to the necessary material changes.
If it has to be techy-flashy, would it satisfy you if the bus was self-driving?
We can walk to school and see the bus when we leave the house and easily beat it by many minutes.
(Busses being slow and routes taking long is probably a design feature, allowing schools to let out at 3PM but parents to not have to be home until 5PM or later).
But the real final solution won't be robocars, it'll be robokids. Then if you lose one you can just get a replacement.
Though you are correct a bus is slow, done right they are faster than walking.