School's out

With the school holidays coming to an end it seems appropriate to talk about the effect they have on traffic.

Anyone who commutes by road will know that you can knock at least 10% off the journey when the schools are off. I'm not quite sure why this should be - presumably because parents are on the road at different times when they don't have to ferry kids around.

So what's the answer? Compulsory US-style school buses perhaps? Or maybe just change the timings so that schools start earlier or later. I don't know the answer, but given the effect the holidays always have you'd have thought someone would have addressed the issue by now.

GOM