Kate Hawkesby: Now the Govt wants to dictate how we take our kids to school

 

I see the latest attempt by councils to control our lives and get us all out of our cars is to axe the school drop off.

Actually it’s not fair to just lay the blame at the feet of councils; these powers are allegedly going to be given to them by the Minister of Transport Michael Wood.

So it’s more anti-car government ideology creeping into our lives at every turn.

You’ve probably already noticed the spate of extra speed humps, pedestrian crossings, increased sets of traffic lights and cycle ways squeezing our roads.

But wait, there’s more. The Minster wants councils to ‘restrict traffic outside schools to encourage parents and children to walk and cycle’. As if that will work. The same way getting us all on buses and bikes haven’t worked.

The government claims it will improve exercise safety.

I say it will just add to more congestion. You tell me how many parents, in the middle of a wet winter, with kids battling all kinds of winter ills and chills, how many of them are going to suddenly pop all those kids on a bike – with all their bags, in teaming rain, to cycle to school?  

They can put in as many cycle ways as they like, do you see any more people on bikes? Me neither.

Is the Government going to ensure the buses that get cancelled or don’t turn up or run woefully late are all suddenly front and centre and on time so all these children can get to school punctually? Didn’t think so either. It’s all theory no reality.

The worst part of this plan is the government wants to give the council this power to ‘reshape our streets’ without consultation.

Sorry? I thought we lived in a democracy? Turns out we don’t.

Dictators will dictate how the streets look, how your child gets to school, and where your car can drive on the roads.

So clearing cars from school gates – as theoretically climate friendly as that may be, and as pretty as the planter boxes they’ll put in the way so we can’t drive near the school may look, I still don’t see how you’re doing any more than just pushing the traffic further up the road. 

You can’t force people out of their cars. You can’t force kids onto bikes. You can’t make people struggling with a cost of living crisis, buy bikes for all their children or buy bus tickets for them all, if they’re used to taking 3 kids to school in one car on one trip at one price.

It’s madness. Carving up streets, removing carparks, installing speed bumps and cycleways, has become an obsession with this Government. 

They want to unilaterally change the way families operate, mess with their logistics, run a reward system for people who can afford public transport, and people who can afford bikes.

Not to mention all the scooters and skateboards this will make way for, which in my humble opinion will probably cause more accidents and harm to kids than cars at school gates do. 

All this so they can ‘help meet the country's climate change emission reduction targets’.

Punishing parents in cars and school students, to fulfil government pipe dreams and ideology, is about as crazy as a cycle lane over the Harbour Bridge.

But knowing this lot, that won’t stop them.

Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.