The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

> The sad part is everyone involved can turn around and claim

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.

>That wouldn't work in US until the whole culture changes.

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.

>kids were playing outside and a neighbor called the authorities on them

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.

I understand that’s terrifying in the moment to have CPS at your door, but maybe the erroneous CPS visit is a one time cost we have to pay to change the culture, until CPS learns to ignore phone calls with no more details other than “children are outside”. If they don’t learn to ignore them - that sounds like lawsuit territory

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)

Maybe they are so different because you (and others) won't try to learn from different cultures. If not, probably nothing will change.

It is if you consider cultures, poverty levels, and crime rates to not be immutable geographic traits, but a result of policy choices. The US can't take a giant leap to kids having Tokyo-like freedom, but it can look at what Japan does differently that results in such a society (eg. its public education system, public transit, policing, street design, typical vehicle size, etc).

Sure, but if you spend time in Japan you really will see five-year-old kids walking long distances and taking transit to school and running errands unaccompanied.

The crew is often in disguise, and the kids have no idea who they are. At 3, do you know what a cameraperson is?

Edit: Occasional parts of the show are the camera people trying to avoid the kid who has turned and is walking right toward them.

There's nothing wrong with it.

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.

That’s quite a tale you were told. As a parent I can tell you my children barely even remember being 3yo, let alone have the ability to reach the shelves and pour their own beverages at that age

Have you seen the show? It's often (usually?) filmed in towns, and I don't recall adults often being notified.

I don't know what you read, but there are plenty of scenes of the kids crossing streets that have traffic.

The exact same people calling CPS on kids walking down the street claiming it's too dangerous are the people who advocate for turning communities into low-trust economic zones.

The reason it's more dangerous now is because of them. They privatized profit (in this case, the warm fuzzies of addicts shooting up on playgrounds) and socialized risk.

That is pollution. We should clean up that pollution, and ban those who created it from causing more.

> I'll take a car line

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.

They also did an "Old Enough Canada":

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgBne2KTlDUyxLPg3oalg...

We can have a walkable community and still have things we love and do.

Don’t worry you’ll get the control and the car line soon enough

You must have a lot of schools. I walked or biked about a mile each way to school starting in third grade (age 8-9), and the only reason I didn't do it a year earlier was that the two other kids who would accompany me were a year younger.

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.

Parenting isn’t just about defending your kid’s boundaries on their behalf. It’s also helping your kid to grow and expand those boundaries, and giving them the skills to manage them independently.

The end goal is to create a happy, fully functioning adult.

“but also a feeling of safety, trust, and security”

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.

Providing a feeling of "safety, trust, and security" contradicts "Kids should have agency and independence." The only way they have safety is if you are with them 100% of the time which means 0 independence. I'm not worried about kids because they will natuarally avoid danger. I'm more worried about adults causing harm to kids (America).

Their safety instinct is wrong. You have to work them through it

> You cannot force a kid to work against their own safety instinct because of your own selfish comfort.

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.

Wtf

/me says "ok boomer" in gen-z

The call-out has been around at least since the early '00s.

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

The pre-school my youngest has this. The middle school my oldest goes to is much more relaxed. I'm fine with treating my 4 year old like she can't be trusted to run around alone, but my 11 year old can.

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)

Yeah, you can see a lot of creativity depending on what's available. Where I once lived in Houston, parents would park at a nearby strip center and huddle around the school exit. And then walk their kid across the 6-lane road (3 lanes in each direction) that Houston is obsessed with building back to where they parked their car.

This sort of thing drives me insane. The people on the polar extremes are (I suspect) part of why we can't have nice things. I've both lived by the school and been a parent, and I badly wish people would practice some empathy and common sense. For example there are some people that will literally sit outside during pickup hours on a lawn chair and yell at people for parking on the street in front of their house (which, btw, is completely legal and there's nowhere else to park within several miles of the school). I've also seen parents park right in front of driveways, blocking people's access to their homes, which is absolutely not ok. It kills me that we can't just have a simple compromise.

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)

That's a lame take from this. Kids/parents fill out forms that state the typical way the students arrive/depart the school. If they are on a bus route, those kids exit the school from a different exit (side/rear of building) so that the buses queuing up do not interfere with the car queue. Walkers typically exit yet a different set of doors.

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.

I dunno... I grew up in the 80s/90s and most of us took the bus or walked if we lived within a mile or so. A parent drop-off/pick-up was the exception - going to a doctor appointment after school or something.

Indeed. My kid could theoretically walk to/from school, but they carry a musical instrument every day along with a backpack full of all of their books. The school doesn't offer lockers anymore because they deemed it "unsafe", so all books and a big Chromebook need to come home each day (and be carried between every class).

Where I live all schools must provide bus service for kids more than 1 mile away, or if the route to school crosses a busy road. Some kids to get a city bus pass, but the yellow school bus is common. I know other states do it differently.

Yes, adults walk ~2 miles/hr. 1.5 hours is too long. But there are bicycles which go ~5 times as fast. Now it's a 15-20 minute trip.

Then have them walk a few blocks to where their parent is parked. There's no reason to have a line of cars idling.

And yet less 40% of students who live within a mile of school walk regularly. For kids who live <.25 miles, that number is still <50%. Walking a quarter of a mile takes ~5 minutes, maybe a bit longer for a small kid with a large school pack.

Many should be able to walk almost as fast as loading up the car, waiting in the queue, etc.

That's still a huge step back from previous generations, where all kids were expected to find their own way to their parents, whether waiting at home, waiting in the pickup loop, or waiting a few blocks away where it's not as busy.

one abduction and one lawsuit will put an end to release forms real quick

Sure, yes, didn't mean to imply schools have to do this. Just that a school can satisfy its need to look paranoid while sidestepping the problems cited in the article. The root problem isn't the schools' paranoia. It's the lack of a solid bus system.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10917142/

And yet, even for students who live within 0.25 mile of school, a minority walk.

I grew up in a suburban area so I am out of touch with the rural experience.

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.

When I grew up in a rural area I walked 1/3 mile to meet the school bus. Is that not still the typical experience?

I disagree it is caused by sub-urbanization or zoning. Housing tracts are built with schools.

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 in part because every major US city has spent decades underbuilding housing (usually through zoning and permitting that makes middle-density housing implicitly or explicitly illegal), pushing everyone out into the burbs just to find homes they can afford.

It might be due to the school consolidations and schools being moved to cheaper areas.

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.

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

Nobody wants to pay for teachers. Consequently, they make bigger schools with larger classrooms.

Where I grew up, you had multiple smaller elementary and middle schools eventually feeding into a larger high school.

> So in effect you’re saying the article is also location dependent?

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.

You seem to be missing the point. In the vast majority of cases locations being unsuitable for walking/cycling to school isn't an immutable law of nature - it's a result of deliberate choices made by humans.

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.

The vast majority of the US is not like this. Yes, there are some (generally poor, urban) areas with crime problems. The average middle class town or suburb? Walking to school would be safe, if we simply built sidewalks instead of 6 lane highways.

The majority of the US is absolutely not like this.

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.

About 95% of children reported missing to the FBI were found to have run away.

Child abduction by strangers is extremely rare: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-missinggirl-dat...

True, but "bad weather" /= UK as well. There is a large spectrum, and UK mostly sits as just a little worse than nice.

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.

School?!? Well fiddledeedee which luxury part of Yorkshire are you from?

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.

I don’t buy that. People like to sit higher than others, and be in a bigger vehicle. It’s a power/status thing.

That is why an SUV is chosen over a minivan.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-gun-violence-solutio...

Especially noted:

> Overall, rural counties had the highest rate of gun deaths.

It varies from state to state. See "Castle Doctrine" and its variants, including the worst "Stand Your Ground" ones. The US has more pockets of dystopia than are necessarily obvious.