Car usage.

[Michel]

Is this the we hate women drivers topic, If so bring it on!!

Absolutely not, far from it

Good. I come here to escape the ill-thought, misogynistic/sexist drivel and bullshit the rest of the Internet and social media seem to be full of.

[Michel]

I agree that far too many will use their car for a short journey where walking would be a better option, as with a lot of those taking their kids to the local school.
It takes longer to get them strapped in the car, drive to school, park (when they bother), unstrap the kids, take them into the school and drive back and park, where it would be quicker to walk with them.

The issue as I see it, is often one of safety. Back when I was a kid, there were nowhere near the amount of cars on the road as there are today. There were affordable buses. Now there are not. It's far safer, however "lazy" it seems, to stick your kids in the car, strapped in, rather than try to corral them on foot down a rush-hour street(s) and across busy roads.

The secondary school my son was originally assigned is about 2.7 miles away as the crow flies. There's no safe way to get there by *any* means other than a car... (James - it was Waingels) Unlit, NSL roads, very narrow country lane, or a very busy main road, then the unlit NSL road. Sammy would have been driven every day. I don't even cycle these roads myself these days.

We in this country need to stop pointing the finger at school run drivers, and stop voting for governments and councils who p**s our money away to their mates, and install ones who actually invest it in infrastructure and transport to solve the problems their lack of action have created.

There's also the fact that a lot of these people drop the kids off at school then continue on to their work, rather than potter home like many parents did when I was at school.

[Michel]

Out of a hundred cars eighty two were driven by women and all of them sole occupants.

Good. Less chance of me being knocked off my motorbike by some aggressive dickhead bloke. Yes, I know there are women like that too, but I've *never* had a near miss involving one on the bike, it's always been blokes.

I have male friends I refuse to be a passenger with, their driving is so bad. No women friends like that though. Funny eh?

[Michel]

At the risk of being shot at dawn, I had lunch with my mate Bob and his son Paul, an electrician, today and Paul told us about an incident that happened to him last week. He was installing a floodlight over a customer's front drive when the lady of the house came home from shopping. She pulled up outside the house and came over and asked Paul if he would mind reversing her car onto the drive for her as "my reversing camera is broken!"

I can't park for s**t Mick, my missus can park in a space about 2" longer than the car!

[myglaren]

The point I was making about strapping the kids in is not that it shouldn't happen, far from it, but that the school is so close that it takes longer to strap them in than it does to walk to the school. There is no need to walk beside the road either, there is a footpath that skims the houses and goes around the edge of a park, or a footpath through the houses.
Most parents choose this option, or the kids go that way on their own, just odd ones who insist on driving.

One tiny girl I worked with, she was known as Lillan (Little One) as she was so small with a little girl voice, could chuck a Volvo 245 into a gap barely longer than the car.