What Does Your Carpool Footprint Look Like?
This morning’s M.I.S. carpool line has me working on a new term (since we haven’t reviewed in quite awhile, I’ve provided a vocab list below). You’ve heard of a carbon footprint, right? Well, this is sort of like that but it’s called a carpool footprint.
Carpool Footprint: The measurable contribution of one driver to a school carpool lane in a single day.
Al Whore
I’m fearing that I could be a Momcano! We get numerous emails from the school about not dropping kids off from the second lane and that we should use the carpool lane to drop the kids off and every morning, I have to wait and watch while kids dart across the carpool lane after being let out from the second lane over, then their parents are the rudest about letting people move back into that lane and out of said carpool lane after dropping their kids off in the manner in which we have been asked to do so. I feel like the carpool situation at MIS/HPMS is a Momcano factory.
What is contributed that can be measured?
I thought this was going to be about the moms that let their V-8 engines idle for 20-30 minutes with A/C going full blast on beautiful days like today when they are in the afternoon carpool line. Reduce your carpool footprint–kill the engine and roll down your windows.
Or you could couch it in disease terms. A person ignoring others in a carpool setting could be said to suffer from “carpool tunnel syndrome”. Thanks, I’m here all week. Tip your waitress. Try the veal.
Amen, A.B.!!! I sat outside HPMS for about 20 minutes late Monday afternoon with my car off, windows down & sunroof open, while the car across the street sat idling for the same amount of time. The real kicker? It was a convertible with the top down!
In addition, the carpool lane on Granada doesn’t work if cars don’t pull forward when space allows. We keep getting reminders to not pick up from the middle lane, but apparently people in the carpool lane need to be reminded to please pull forward.
Well it’s your lucky day – everyone can sign up to take a safety patrol carpool shift the first few weeks of school to make sure it all goes smoothly? What say ye? Merritt – are you up for it? Kindly email your PTA president to lend a hand. Really it’s a job that would fill you will blog ideas for weeks to come.
Overheardians… you too –
And my best advice for carpools remains: get there late.
@volunteers–I totally agree with your ‘get there late’ philosophy. 10 minutes late to carpool turns the whole ordeal into an easy mission.
@Jen–LMAO–a convertible?!
I also thought this would be about the idling. I almost always park a street over and walk to pick up all my carpool kids. I bring a magazine. I socialize with other parents. Not sure if this happens at every carpool but at Bradfield people get there at 2:00 for a 2:30 pick up so they can be first in line and will let their car idle the entire time. They must sit there and watch the gas gauge dwindle by the second. If you are going to use the car pool lane you should just time it to get there at 2:38. Then you can wisk right through.
At MIS carpool pickup on Granada Thursday afternoon there was an officer on foot & I saw her speaking to someone who stopped in the passing lane to pick up her kids. Also, the cars in the carpool lane seemed to be pulling forward to fill the empty spaces.
As for volunteering for safety patrol, from what I’ve seen many “offenders” don’t care if an officer tells them they’re “doing it wrong,” much less a volunteer. You have to have just the right personality to deal with this group, and I don’t have it. I love the officer who directs traffic on Douglas at HPHS; she seems to love her job.
No hate mail please, but I am one of the moms who pulls into the middle lane except when the mean police lady is there. However, I never let my child get out of the car from there, and I don’t ever just stop in the middle. I pull around and go into the parking lot. It is so annoying when the people in the carpool lane just sit there. What are they doing anyway? And why don’t all the kids just get out of the cars when they get to where the sidewalk begins? Do these precious little ones need front door service? If the lane would move faster, I would be in it.