Race to the school drop off zone

There is a wild and fiendish group of drivers who avoid public scrutiny by and large but who are nevertheless, a hazard to life and limb. That group is the parents, typically mothers, who drive their kids to school in the morning and then pick them up after school.

We live near a small private school that is attached to a Catholic church. And while they are behind the wheel of their Navigator or Escalade, the people who come to these institutions will fear no living man, woman or child. They wheel around the corners, of our residential streets all wild-eyes staring straight ahead, all four wheels churning and engines racing as their vehicles lunge forward, hurtling them to their destination…that spot about two feet from the front door of the school.

Look out if you are trying to go for a peaceful walk with a coffee and umbrella in one hand, a bag of dog shit and leash held in your other hand, small child strapped to your chest and blind dog blissfully unaware sniffing the trail. These streets are taken over by people who do not cast their eyes to the side; they are focused, like a NASCAR driver on the track with every intention of winning the race to the door. Do not dare step off the curb as these demon-possessed divers roar along the streets in exhilarating race fashion.

And then they get to their final destination where they can step out of their gas-guzzling SUV, while leaving it running, and help their porky little progeny out of the back seat. And then they see their kid’s friend, walk across the parking lot to say hello, all the while leaving their gas-guzzler spewing greenhouse gases into the environment.

Together then these mothers look with derision at the other mothers wheeling into the parking lot, just as they have done mere minutes ago. And you can imagine them thinking to themselves, as they pull their children a little closer to them, “You shouldn’t drive like that, you might harm my precious.”

And then the bell rings, the children pour into the school, the gas-guzzlers retreat to their lairs for the rest of the day and once again, our neighbourhood becomes safe for the residents. Until 3pm when there will be an encore presentation.