4 x 4 doesn't go

I'm amazed there aren't more accidents on the roads around our house, which become completely choked from 8.15 to 9.15 every day, and again at school chucking-out time.

Parents with more money than sense, often driving massive 4x4 wagons, many with personalised plates (yes, I mean you J1 MMY) driving their beloved progeny the few hundred yards to school because they think they're safer than if they walked or took the bus. The difference in traffic levels during half-term and full-term holidays is quite literally incredible. I know from experience that there's rarely more than 20% of my colleagues that take annual leave at half term. And yet there's easily less than half the number of vehicles on the roads during that week. Which means they're all "school run" vehicles.

I don't know what it is about parents doing the school run. Maybe it's the only driving they ever do. But they don't seem to have any road sense, knowledge of the highway code, or even much common sense. They let their kids fling open the doors without checking if there's anything coming. They walk out from between parked cars. They stop on the zig-zag markings at pedestrian crossings. They perform dangerous U-turns against the flow of traffic. They behave as if their journey was the only important one, and everyone else on the road should get out of their way.

An official, properly organised and ubiquitous school bus service is long overdue for this country, especially in the major cities. It would cut rush-hour traffic massively not to mention improving everyone's temper.