The school run wears many parents down, with 43% associating it with stress. The chaos outside the gates is bad enough that some councils now treat it as a road safety problem in its own right, introducing School Street zones that close the road to through-traffic.

Kingston ranks as London's eighth worst borough for the school run and 11th nationally with 117 collisions reported in the past 12 months and 4.50 per school.

But where is the school run at its worst in Kingston?

New research by the UK's largest car scrappage comparison provider Scrap Car Comparison counted every collision recorded within 250 metres of each school, including in Kingston, during school run hours, measures congestion outside the worst-affected gates and surveys 1,000 driving parents.

The most dangerous school runs in England and Wales are in London

According to the figures, schools in London postcode areas (Central London) record an average of 9.22 collisions each during school run hours over the five years, with 15,473 collisions in total across 1,678 schools. The figure for the rest of England and Wales is 1.95.

Schools in London are more likely to sit on a main road, a bus route or a junction, and kerbside space is scarcer, which is likely to push more parents into stopping where they conflict with moving traffic.

Beyond central London, Croydon is highest at 7.79 collisions per school, followed by Southall (6.32), Enfield (6.27) and Ilford (6.16). Hounslow (5.38) and Dagenham (4.98) also make the top 10, putting seven Greater London locations in the 10 worst.

And in Kingston, Spring School, a SEND school on Coombe Road, was found to have the most dangerous school run.

Outside of London, Portsmouth comes top at 5.57 collisions per school. The city sits on Portsea Island and its traffic funnels through a handful of crossings, so residential streets are likely to carry more through-traffic than they otherwise would.

Brighton is narrowly behind at 5.56, where narrow Victorian terraces and steep gradients leave little room for drop-off traffic. Chatham completes the top 10 at 4.64.

For each of the 30 locations with the most collisions per school, Scrap Car Comparison timed the drive along the road outside the worst-affected school at the busiest point of afternoon pick-up, against the same stretch when clear.

Across all 30 schools tested, the road outside takes 53% longer on average at peak school run times. The largest difference is in Luton, where the road outside Bury Park Educational Institute takes up to three times as long (202% longer) to drive down at its busiest.

Congestion is a common complaint, with only 18% of parents surveyed saying they never hit traffic at drop-off or pick-up and almost a quarter (23%) spending more than an hour on the round trip at least occasionally.

Almost half of parents who drive their children to school have had an incident while doing so

Almost half (49%) of the parents surveyed have had at least one incident on the school run in the past 12 months. More than one in five (22%) have had a confrontation with another driver and 18% with another parent. Another 12% have picked up a parking ticket.

More seriously, one in 12 parents (8%) say they have been in a collision on the school run in the past year, however minor.

Asked which feelings they associate with the school run, 'rushed' comes back more than any other, picked by 6 in 10 (61%) of driving parents.

Stressed (43%), frustrated (40%) and anxious (37%) follow, though 45% also say the journey makes them happy. Across a typical week, almost 6 in 10 (59%) describe the school run as at least somewhat stressful.

Mothers tend to report more negative feelings than fathers. Half of mothers (51%) feel stressed during the run against 34% of fathers and 69% of mothers feel rushed against 52% of fathers.

Matt Clamp, car scrappage expert at Scrap Car Comparison, said: "Almost every bit of school run stress comes back to time. Give yourself more of it and the whole experience will be better and everyone will be safer as a result.

"The school run is also some of the hardest driving a car does all week: stop-start traffic wears brakes and tyres far faster than motorway miles, and worn pads or low tread cost you the extra metre or two of stopping distance that matters on a congested street.

"But if part of the reason why you dread the school run is because of the condition of the car you're doing it in, no amount of planning can fix that. Once the cost of repairs passes what the car is worth, scrapping it is usually the safer call."

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