The most dangerous areas to drive and walk in our town are the two schools at pickup time. Parents flock to the place, double park, block drive lanes, get into arguments and then speed away in frustration. The only collision I've seen in town was at pickup time at the catholic school. A couple years ago, an suv hit my son's parked school bus in the parking lot, with my son in it.
Winter just makes it all worse. I park away from the school and walk when I get him, which isn't often. Yesterday I got splashed with slush from a Tesla speeding away from the school. A student ran to a teacher to report that two parents were yelling at each other. On my way onto the main road I saw a police cruiser so I motioned him to go check out the school, but he ignored me.
Everyone is in a hurry, no one walks anywhere and the kids hardly go outside.
My son lost his bus privileges in grade 3 because we are just under 1.5km away. He walks most days. Neighbours with older kids lie and say their kids do before and after with neighbours who live 1.6km away, so these grade 8s, next to us, get to ride the bus and walk 50m home. Meanwhile my grade 5, given the choice, refused to lie to the school.
We get incredulous questions about our son walking all the way to school, like it's a marathon. These people, man.
I digress.
Winter driving is poorly understood. People need to practice with the limits of grip to understand how they can change with conditions. Skid school should be mandatory.
Yes, people should drive slower. But they need to understand why they need to drive slower. So many people have never had their tires lose grip, and they dont understand what can happen or what to do. Drivers of all ages don't respect snow and ice because they're usually fine. Until they aren't.
Skid school. Skid school. Skid school. The one my wife went to closed down. We should be opening more of them, not closing them down. Make it part of driver training. Make it part of the damn test. Too many people are getting injured and dead over ignorance about winter driving.