JEDDAH, 22 October 2007 — For every father in the Kingdom picking up his child or children from school is a nightmare, as there is a lot of congestion in front of schools at home time. In fact, with the majority of drivers waiting outside schools usually only coming to collect one child and most children being collected by their dads, the streets around schools at home time are heavily congested with cars.

School buses are usually able to carry around 30 children; however, most parents refuse to use the buses saying they take a long time to reach home.

“When I go to pick up my child from school it usually takes me around 30 minutes to get out of the traffic located in front of the school,” said Osama Hassanain, who was walking his young child back to his GMC, which was double parked on a main road in front of the Al-Aqsa School located in the Old Airport district on Abdullah Al-Sulaiman road.

Speaking about why he does not use the school bus, Hassanain said, “It takes the bus more than two hours to reach my home. If I pick him up, it’s more convenient for my child because then it only takes us 45 minutes to get home.”

Hassanain parks his car on a main road away from his son’s school to avoid getting stuck in the more congested side of the road close to his son’s school.

In front of the school was a double-parked mini van. “Why are you double parking? It’s dangerous,” I asked the Bangladeshi driver behind the wheel. “I’ll be out soon. I’m waiting till the school bell rings at 1.30 p.m. I then walk to the school to pick up the boy I’m waiting for. It’s much easier like that,” he said.

To add to the problem of congestion, many schools do not have traffic signs warning drivers to slow down. “Drivers on a wide main road such as this one tend to drive at fairly high speeds. A number of accidents have occurred in front of the school as speeding cars hit parked cars,” he said.

As the clock struck 1.30 p.m., traffic on the road came to a standstill as three of the four lanes became filled with parked cars.

Galal Ahmad, an Egyptian expatriate, said that on the first day of school after the holidays his son came home at 3:30 p.m. “I telephoned the school and was told that the bus had left at 2:15 p.m. It was strange because my house is only a 15 minutes walk from the school,” he said.

“He is in the first grade and arrived home thirsty as he had no more drinking water left. I told a number of my Saudi friends about the situation in search of a solution. One friend told me to bribe the driver,” said Galal.

“My friend, a father of two, told me that he pays his children’s bus driver SR20 twice a month to ensure his children come home on time,” he added.

“Yesterday I did what my friend told me. I woke up at the crack of dawn and waited for the driver armed with SR20. As instructed by my friend I handed the driver four SR5 bills and indirectly explained what I wanted him to do. Yesterday my child reached home at 3 p.m. — 30 minutes earlier than the day before,” Galal said, adding that he will hand the driver another SR20 in the coming two weeks to ensure that his son arrives home on time.