By: Drew Sallinger
Horns honking, people screaming and yelling, the sounds of tires squealing and engines being revved for no apparent reason. Door dings and wrong way signs ignored, its just part of a school parking lot and when you’re dealing with student drivers you have to be carefully.
Student drivers are not the type of people to actually care about how their driving affects other people especially when they’re in a hurry. If you ask around you’ll get a common consensus about how people drive in and around our school. Even pulling into our parking lot we have a nice yellow sign that clearly states, “through traffics does not stop.” But everyday there’s someone who stops and almost causes an accident. And our nice little “Do Not Enter” signs are really just a waste of space, let’s be honest no one actually obeys them. Our new concrete wall smack dab in the middle of our lot doesn’t really stop people from speeding; it just funnels everyone to go around them, Associate principal Mr. Focht stated that the reasoning for the barriers was “Our parking lot is unlike any other school’s, which allows students to speed acrossed it” Focht also made mention of the many accidents in our parking lot therefore justifying the need for them.
Parking seems to be an issue for some people, you occasionally have someone who has no problem pulling into a parking spot, but most of the time you see kids park halfway over the lines, crooked, sideways through two spots, or if it’s a truck diagonally across four different parking spaces. You honestly can’t blame them either, our parking lot has so many door dings, scratches and hit and runs that being protective of your vehicle is more than justified. Senior, Austin Gubbels has had four people hit his little black truck in the past two years. Three of which were hit and runs, and one was just due in part to the other person’s careless driving. “When the security guard comes to get me, they usually said ‘We think it’s your truck that’s been hit’ and the past three times it’s been the back half of my truck. I’m not mad about it, it’s the fact that it’s private property and that Officer Morrow can’t do anything about it. I wouldn’t be mad at the person, I would just rather have them up and tell me instead of running off.”
It’s not always the student driver’s faults either, it’s kind of sad just how terribly the parents drive and act when in our parking lots. It’s not that they’re terrible drivers, it’s just that for an adult who should be a role model, driving like a bat outta hell it’s a real shame. You really can’t tell them apart from us when they’re driving, they honk, holler, and peal out just as much as the students.
We as a collective really need to start driving more responsibly, we have kids falling out of windows and with not only students being involved in accidents, but parents and teachers too. there needs to be a change, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon. So drive safe and have a wonderful day.
