IT is a regular occurrence for the road outside St Francis's School on Cherry Tree Lane, Blackburn, where I live, and for residents' drives and pavements to be blocked on school days from 3.30pm until 3.45pm by parents' parked cars.

Other parents, in their haste to collect their child dodge between the cars and, regardless of pedestrians drive, sometimes at speed, along the pavements.

After collecting their children, the majority then let them jump around inside the cars, ignoring the fact that seat belts should be worn, whilst queuing bumper-to-bumper waiting to turn into Preston Old Road.

On December 11, it was therefore, with great surprise, that I was able to put my car, without any obstructions, straight into the driveway. I looked around and noticed a photographer lurking in the grounds of the home for elderly people on Preston Old Road.

I then noticed two parents, driving in opposite directions, stop, wind down their windows and have a quick conversation. The car about to drive near the school hurriedly turned around and drove back out onto Preston Old Road.

In my innocence, I assumed that the safety of the children had finally become an issue for positive action. How wrong I was!

These self same parents, who every day endanger the lives of their own children and those of others, had organised a demonstration.

In their quest for a school crossing patrol, they decided to stop all the traffic on Preston Old Road, using not only themselves but the children as barriers.

I would have thought that if they were so concerned with safety they would not have abandoned one dangerous activity for another. So concerned are they with their rights, they forget that children of primary school age, especially all infants and lower juniors, should be collected from school by a responsible adult capable of taking them across the road in any case.

If they were more considerate and safety conscious, the parents with cars would park well away from the exit on to Preston Old Road when coming to collect children. This, in turn, would alleviate the problem of excess traffic at this time.

They have proved this is possible as, on this particular day, most of the cars were parked further along Preston Old Road. Was this for a quick getaway afterwards perhaps?

It think it is time these parents took a long hard look at their own safety standards before trying to change those of others.

J O'MALLEY (Mrs), Cherry Tree Lane, Cherry Tree, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.