For years, teenage drivers have been the highest at-risk demographic on the road. At RMHS, students exemplify this statistic with their horrendous driving abilities and questionable decision-making.
It’s seen every day. A student pulls into the Field House and attempts what seems to be the most challenging and dreaded driving maneuver for teens today: parking. Often, the student miserably fails, either completely missing their intended spot and having to reverse and retry or parking over the lines, yet leaving content. In some cases, students will completely strike out and end up scraping one of their classmates’ cars. And surprisingly, these parking mishaps are quite common nowadays. In this school year alone, there have been at least 2 parking accidents that I know about in Field House lot, with one resulting in considerable damage to another car’s side bumper.
And this isn’t even close to some of the other things witnessed in the parking lot. What’s even worse is the blatant unawareness and stupidity of student drivers. Just a few weeks ago, I was crossing the street, and some girl, without looking around to see if the road was clear, pulled out of her parking spot with impressive velocity and nearly sent me to the hospital. Thankfully, she braked in time but it was unreal how oblivious she was to her surroundings.
A similar thing happened to my friend Kyle at the beginning of the school year. Kyle came into the parking lot and indicated he was going to turn into a specific spot. So what does the car going the opposite way do? Perhaps wait? No, not at RMHS. Instead, it comes to a full stop, giving Kyle the go-ahead to turn left but then all of a sudden it completely disregards Kyle’s existence and continues forward, almost T-boning his precious Honda truck. After almost causing thousands of dollars worth of damage, the driver drives off unfazed as if nothing happened.
All of these incidents have occurred in a few select parking lots within RMHS’s campus. So what happens when these same drivers take on the real roads? Well, the lack of awareness really begins to show. Students don’t know when to turn at an intersection, whether crossing Lowell Street or turning left onto Willow. They also don’t know when they’re holding up traffic and many learn the hard way that stopping in the middle of the road to change lanes or merge is a surefire way of getting honked at.
I will say, however, that this is just a fraction of the student body. Most kids are perfectly fine on the road. But some drivers are so exceptionally bad that I am forced to write this piece.
So what’s the solution to this problem? The first thing is that driver education has to start being more strict. They need to stress awareness on the road and enforce traffic laws so aspiring drivers know how to drive in different situations. They also need to put a stronger emphasis on parking since it is a key skill that many newly licensed drivers struggle with. Additionally, parents need to assume a bigger role. They need to ensure their kids are ready and experienced in a variety of situations before handing over the keys.
At the end of the day, ensuring that our drivers are well-trained to take on the roads is a big responsibility. It is our job to make sure that drivers are confident and capable so that everyone can safely operate their vehicles.
