Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

collegetowns.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 388 posts

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#221

Post by gizajob »

alistairSH wrote: post #124

100% agree with the title. 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…

I remember an Irish cousin of my mother’s moving to Reno, NV in the 90s. She used to dry her laundry on a line outdoors, where the 40° heat meant that it would dry in minutes. Well, the neighbours found this bizarre almost to the point of being offensive and she got kind of ostracised for doing it… and then she had to join in with what everyone else did and used the dryer for 2 hours burning electricity to achieve the same result that could have been done in 1/4 of the time for free.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#222

Post by gabruoy »

lvl155 wrote: post #43

Counter point: I used to walk home from school. Got robbed at gun point several times. Jumped for my skin color numerous times. Had a neighborhood buddy who got stabbed three times on his way home and survived. I can go on and on and on. I had to learn to walk an extra 20-30 minutes to avoid these situations. I will never let my kids walk home in 2025. Edit: no one told these parents to drive up for pick up like a dr…

My parents used to live in a city where violence and crime was common, and I received all sorts of lessons from them about how I shouldn’t go outside, don’t talk to strangers, always be guarded, etc. But my family had moved to a quiet, crime-free suburb and everything they told me seemed like the complete opposite of what I was experiencing in reality when growing up.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#223

Post by ghaff »

gizajob wrote: post #206
ghaff wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has done a bunch of long distance walks in the UK, I’ve encountered any number of relatively rural or small town roads with no shoulders along walls or hedgerows that are at least as scary as a pedestrian as anything I’ve encountered in the US.

And yet you’re still with us. Jumping onto the wall or into a hedge is part of the fun.

It's not very safe if you can't get off a curvy road with no shoulder, especially in poor visibility. You're probably OK as a bet as a sometimes thing but not something I'd, have especially a kid, do on a daily basis. One reason I didn't learn to ride a bike as a kid because that basically described the road our house was on and fatalities associated with kids riding bikes wasn't rare.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#224

Post by twiddling »

aqme28 wrote: post #156
Aurornis wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an entire section and even a chart in the article that explains why this is different now 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.

why are schools farther away now? That's interesting.

zoning and economies of scale in building out larger schools overall which from a bigger area. throw in pedestrian hostile suburban road design...voila

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#225

Post by marklubi »

aklemm wrote: post #5

Well that headline sums it up. After 10 years of dealing with it and wondering "how the f did we get to this point", it's satisfying to hear it called what it is. 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 sl…

When they started the pickup lines, I started just parking about half a mile away from the school. He knew exactly where I would be and we completely avoided the traffic and insanity of that nonsense.

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.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#227

Post by rexpop »

thehoagie wrote: post #192

We live across the street from our kids elementary and middle schools. There is a sidewalk and a crosswalk to the school. Parents in our subdivision still choose to drive in because "the crosswalk is too dangerous". Schools can't afford crossing guards, county engineers claim it is an enforcement issue, police can't cover it with their limited staffing, and Republicans are banning school speeding cameras in Georgia.

New York City saw a 55% reduction in fatalities in school zones with cameras, and Oglethorpe County, Georgia reported zero accidents in a high-risk zone for three months after camera installation, compared to 1–2 daily crashes previously.

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...

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#228

Post by graypegg »

ryandrake wrote: post #22

An odd choice of dates in the charts: 1969, 2009, 2017, 2022. 40 years between the first two and less than ten between the other ones. I would have liked to see more uniform spacing between the first two to understand whether the change across those 40 years was gradual. 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…

I totally understand the anxiety. If you get "DANGER!" pumped into you constantly, it's going to be hard to rationalize your way out of that.

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.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#229

Post by drewg123 »

hommelix wrote: post #216
drewg123 wrote: post #136

This problem is over for me, as my son has graduated, but part of the problem is NIMBY'ified suburban roads that dead-end rather than connecting neighborhoods (in order to cut down on neighborhood traffic). 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 h…

In the Netherlands they build the neighborhood like that, but at the dead end of the street is a small path for walking/biking. So driving to school would take 2 km, but walking only 500 m.

Yes, this would have been so much smarter. But in this case, they apparently sold extra large lots to the surrounding houses, and made no provisions for pedestrians. Welcome to the USA.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#230

Post by robertlagrant »

aklemm wrote: post #5

Well that headline sums it up. After 10 years of dealing with it and wondering "how the f did we get to this point", it's satisfying to hear it called what it is. 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 sl…

My kids having been cycling a mile each way to school since they were 5 years old. It's definitely doable, although we're fortunate enough that we aren't both working long days, and are well off enough that school is that close.
Post reply on HN