15:10 outside the school: a ball, an open van and reversing lights
It is 15:10 on a narrow residential street a few hundred metres from a primary school. Cars are parked nose-to-tail on both sides, leaving a single lane. You are doing about 30 km/h, which feels slow but is the speed of the traffic in front. On your left a delivery van is parked with its rear doors open and the driver is carrying boxes across to a doorway. On your right a ball bounces out from between two parked cars and rolls into the road about 15 metres ahead. A child's scooter is propped against the wall behind the second parked car. Beyond the van, a car is waiting to emerge from a driveway on your left with its reversing lights on. An oncoming hatchback has just appeared at the far end of the street.
1. Which hazard do you act on first, and what exactly do you do?
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The ball. Everything else can be watched; the ball demands action in the next second.
At 30 km/h you are covering about 8.3 metres per second, and the ball is 15 metres away - under two seconds, before any allowance for reaction time. And the ball is not the hazard: a ball in the road means a child is about to follow it, and a child chasing a ball looks at the ball, not at you. The scooter against the wall behind the parked car confirms there are children here.
So: brake now and progressively, not sharply, because the car behind will be close in a queue like this. Come down to a speed from which you can stop in the distance you can see to be clear - walking pace - cover the brake, and be ready to stop completely. Check the gap under and between the parked cars as you approach. Do not sound the horn as a first response: it may stop the child, or it may freeze them in the road.
2. How do you get past the van, with the oncoming hatchback now in the street?
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You do not take the gap while the oncoming car is in it, and you do not take it while the delivery driver is unloading.
Break it down. The single lane past the van is the only route, and three separate things can close it: the delivery driver walking back to the van with a box and no hands free, the reversing car in the driveway on your left, and the hatchback coming the other way. Hold back before the van, make eye contact with the delivery driver so he knows you are there, and let the hatchback clear the gap first. Then move through at walking pace, able to stop within the space you can see.
Before pulling out round the van, check your right mirror for a cyclist or scooter coming up on that side - they will be hidden by the van just as you are hidden from them. And do not flash or wave the reversing car out; you cannot see what else is behind you, and inviting someone into the road is not yours to do.
3. What does the time of day tell you about this street, and how does that change your plan?
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It is 15:10, a few hundred metres from a primary school: the school day is ending. Within a few minutes this street will fill with children on foot and on scooters, parents stopping in the road, car doors opening, and cars pulling out without a full check because the driver is watching a child rather than the traffic.
That changes the plan in two ways. First, getting through this section before the surge is worth more than gaining a few seconds now - but not at the cost of a rushed pass of the van. Second, if you are still here when it fills up, commit to walking pace and expect the unexpected: no manoeuvre that depends on other people reacting correctly, no reversing, no squeezing past the van when the gap is contested. If you have to stop, stop where you are visible and leave a gap in front so you can move off without shunting. The correct outcome is to leave this street having given way more than you needed to.