I've mentioned this before so sorry for the repeat:

Part of the problem is the system whereby you don't get your kids into a school nearby. A mother local to me has two kids in secondary schools, and schools is the word as she has them at different ones. She can either leave them to the vagaries of the bus (there are reasons that make this a wee bit unreasonable) or else take them by car. So she does a round trip of probably over 10 miles every morning. She is self-employed and works from home so there's no timing problems for her.

If both kids went to the same nearby school she would be happy - very happy in fact - to send them to school on foot.

Neither school has any arrangements for parents to drop kids off. Whilst there is space in one school which the PTA produced plans to use, the school refused saying that they would only put their limited money towards something which educates the children. Which is reasonable.

So her morning is feeding the youngest - she's recently remarried and has a kid of around 2 and another on the way - getting them into the MPV, ensuring the other two are ready, getting them into the car, driving to near the first school and dropping one off with a friend for the pair to walk the final 250 yards about half an hour later. She then drives back the way she came to the other school. It is situated on a rat run. People who live in the area resent the rat run and the school run and park their cars in the road ostensibly to slow traffic but, the woman feels, just to piss everyone off. She then gets onto the approach to the school. She cannot turn off as the side roads have been turned into one-way systems to thwart those who would drive along narrow residential roads.

She then gets stuck in traffic while other mothers drop their kids off and then eventually she becomes part of the same problem. She then drives past the school, turns right along another rat run, goes down to a traffic jam at a junction that requires a roundabout but as there's no room it is soemthing she'll have to put up with. Oddly, she reckons it must be quicker to do a U turn and going past the school again after dropping the kids off as many mothers do just that. I said U turn and not three-point-turn for reasons which would, it seems, be obvious from watching.

There are alternatives for the school run, one of which is the eldest riding a bicycle to school. However, the route goes along another rat run. Further, she lives up a very steep hill. Once down it there's another climb before another steep drop. Not easy cycling country. No proper cycle routes for part of the run.

The kids come back under their own steam, buses and walking for one, walking for the other.

Despite this woman being a sensible driver she has sympathy for the parents (she reckons that fathers dropping off kids are just as bad) dropping their kids off if they have to come some distance. Many have jobs to go to so timing is often critical. She has no such pressure but even then gets impatient.

The eldest, who is in the school furthest away, could be moved to the nearby school but the lad's been there for three years (at the time I got an earful from this woman because at a dinner party I mentioned that the mothers - that was thoughtless - at school time were a liability) and was part of some school sports team, didn't want to leave his mates, was in the final years of his O levels and no doubt more.

Mind you, I accept that merely getting kids to a school nearby would not solve the problem.

Another aspect is that the junior school that all my four kids went to is approached via a narrow rat run. Some drivers will not slow, will block parents getting across the road, will mount the pavement to get past vehicles coming in the opposite direction.

When I was in charge of a shift at Brighton we had complaints from drivers of road blockages early on in the morning. I sent a motorcycle patrol PC along for an 0815 to 0915 duty to sort the matter out. Far from challenging the mothers parking carelessly he ended up ticketing a number of drivers pushing their way past other road users. His point of view was that if you use rat runs past schools at dropping off time you should expect to be delayed.

After that I went to a meeting of the PTA/school head/governors regarding the school run and we concluded there was indeed no answer. So 90 mintues not wasted there.

My mum used to live near a school. Several times she has come home, or wanted to leave her home to find a parents car in her drive.

I did come home one day and find a car parked in my drive, luckily it was far enough forward that I could fit in behind it. 10 minutes later there's a knock on the door "You seem to have blocked me in" she says, no apology at all. So I agreed that yes I had in fact blocked her in and I would be going out the next day around 10am if she would like to come back then to collect her car, then closed the door (and rushed to the window to keep an eye on her!).

The woman lived on a farm just on the outskirts of the village. There was no bus that came anywhere near her house. Even then the bus went the wrong way. There was a fair walk to the nearest stop. The problem was that the kids would have to cross two roads that were used as rat runs, although to be fair to the drivers, there was no real alternative to one route. But they hammer along it. No pedex in a convenient location.

I didn't molycoddle my kids but I wouldn't have let them cycle along it. A few years ago I used to cycle 200+ miles a week and I would use alternative, but longer routes.

When the kids came back from their schools it was not during the rush hour, although even then the woman used to pick them up remote from the house in order to take them across the roads that were dangerous.

There's a big difference round my way between the traffic volume and speed at 0815 and 0315.

She was only an aquaintance. I made the mistake of shooting my mouth off about parents taking kids to school and she punished me for it. I was cornered for some time whilst she explained her problems.

That said, in bad weather I used to take my yougest to school by car and used to park in a road about 150 yards from the school. There was a parent living in that road who used to put her kids in her 6-series BMW (without belts) and then drive along the narrow road to drop them 75 yards from the school. She did that even in fine weather. So there are degrees of reasonableness.

You need to use the children to guilt trip their parents into either parking correctly or walking them to school.

There was similar problem at my daughter's school, although not as bad as some described here.

The head will be out most mornings to ensure nobody parks on the zig-zags, but then they started a system where walking to school earned house points for the kids. All (well most) of them want to earn house points so will pester their parent into walking.

For those that can't walk (parents dropping off kids on the way to work etc) there was an additional rule that as long as you've walked more than 100m you still got the points, which reduced (didn't stop) the amount of parents parking as close to the school as possible.

Does one of the resident BiB want to comment on how they would treat an incident like this if said lazy school-run-mother called the police to report the fact that their car had been blocked in?

A word to the aggrieved houseowner to move the car to avoid a breach of the peace? Or more sympathy at the blatant and unashamed trespass, even though it's not a criminal offence?