Think back to the last day of the Agricultural Show a couple of weeks ago. Did you notice anything strange? No, I’m not talking about the smell of the farm animals or David Lopes’ skinny legs. I’m talking about how little traffic there was on the road in the morning rush hour. Why? Because school was out that’s why. Just like on any other school holiday, traffic is cut by at least half. I mean its not rocket science to figure out why when the children are out of school, there is definitely less traffic.Then came Monday, and as I was about to leave for work I noticed my nice next door neighbours leaving as well, who happen to have two children. I noticed one kid went in the family car driven by Mommy and the other kid went in a company van driven by Daddy. The reason being one kid goes to school in Warwick and the other one goes to one in town. Okay I got that. So as I’m driving into town, or should I say crawling into town, I started looking at the cars around me and those going in the opposite direction to where I was travelling and what I noticed is most of these cars had one adult and one kid. Yes parents or nanny’s driving youngsters to school.Even me, with my basic maths skills, can see how this is adding up to create a traffic problem, not to mention the fuel used and the big carbon footprint (a term I just picked up and had to use) being created.Now being the sort of person that I am, someone who loves to get people thinking and eventually p** them off, I have come up with a solution, and here it is, no more one kid being chauffeured around like a hip-hop star.It’s time to start taking the public bus. It’s okay parents, you can walk them to the bus stop and wait for the bus together. Don’t worry, you got plenty of time. Now I’m sure if you’ve got a problem with the dear ones having to walk to the bus stop, then it’s time to start considering car pooling.Let me tell you how this is done. You need to get together with other parents and figure out who lives where and start taking turns in picking up a minimum of two other children. I’m sure those of you that have those gas-guzzling SUV’s can pack a couple more in there.Now I’m confident many of you can see the benefits of car pooling. Apart from me getting another 20 minute lay-in the morning, I won’t have to start my day off stressed out from getting stuck into the daily grind of bumper to bumper traffic all the way into town.It’s human nature to support something as long as it does not involve or impact you — you’ve heard it “Sure, I have no problem with them building a new waste disposable plant as long as it’s not in my backyard or Parish” or “Sure, I don’t mind them building a new halfway house as long as it’s built in ... Dockyard”.So what will be the motivation be for parents to get on board with car pooling? This might work — how about if you turn up to school with only one kid in the car, and it’s considered a violation of school policy or something — similar to not wearing the proper school uniform. Give that parent a red card. I guarantee you, they will only do it once. Don’t ever think parents can’t be trained.So, what d’ya say Minister Burgess? Want to pick up a few more votes? It will make a lot of people happy. How would your boss put it? Do you have the “testicular fortitude” for this one?* What do you think about this? Do you feel grumpy about something? E-mail grumpyoldman@royalgazette.bm