The present farce

It never ceases to amaze me how bad the problems can be at school entrances and the reason is almost always the same. The rule is that standard keep clear markings in the UK are placed outside the school entrance on the school side. The result of this is all too clear; time and again parents park opposite the school compounding the problems of visibility which the markings were supposed to resolve and actually obstructing children crossing the road. If children are crossing to school in the morning and from school in the afternoon it is quite clear that their visibility requirements must apply on both sides of the road!
SO LET'S DO IT!!

Such parking that must be accommodated on the highway should where possible take place on the school side of the road. In this way the children brought to and collected from school by car do not have to cross the road at all. This has to be the safest way. So what I have done in some places is to lay a sufficient keep clear marking at the main pedestrian entrance to the school, and ensure that parking opposite is not possible by using waiting restrictions, build-outs or even additional keep clear markings. This has proved very effective.

Many traffic engineers place the markings at the vehicular entrances as well as the pedestrian ones which may be OK if that is needed for visibility for emerging drivers but typically most schools up and down the country have poor arrangements. Even the official advice has been that it is ‘not appropriate’ for the markings to be laid on both sides of the road, unless there happen to be school entrances located on both sides! I understand that this advice is being re-thought - not before time.

Add vertical deflections

So with traffic calming available too what is the best solution for a typical school entrance? First identify clearly the pedestrian desire lines. Look at all directions for parents and/or children approaching and leaving and note the nearest crossing points. I devised for Gillingham BC which was essentially a traffic management scheme to prevent lock-up and to deal with the passing conflict on a narrow road. In order to keep speeds down it was proposed to install humps (speed tables) with slight kerb build-outs up-stream to prevent parking on the critical approaches to the humps to give a minimum visibility between drivers and children waiting to cross. The hump locations were chosen to precisely link up with the pedestrian movements, not only for those walking to and from school but also those that needed to cross the road to get to or from parked cars. It had not been possible in this case for all parking to take place on the school side of the road. The scheme did not have a particular history of crashes but there had been some over the years. The new arrangement works well without the problems of drivers driving onto the footways and verges to pass one another. illustrate the before and after arrangements at another site where previously the zig-zags had unnecessarily prevented parking near the school entrance but encouraged parking opposite it. The new arrangement incorporates speed tables precisely on the desire lines and most children brought to school by car able to walk between the car and the school without having to cross the road.

In short, you should design for pedestrian movements by attracting them towards safe crossing places often on a speed table; arrange for parking to be able to take place on the school side of the road but away from where children cross; prevent parking anywhere near where children cross especially opposite the entrance. If you can arrange for the road to be one-way or single lane dualled at the crossing points it will then be impossible for parents to park in certain areas without blocking the road.