Learn some manners or get off the road

By Madie Delmendo,

Manners are at an all-time low in the parking lot of DHS, where students park as they wish and act as they please.
For those who are plagued by unpleasant drivers, considerate drivers are a breath of fresh air and deserve recognition for their rare kindness.
Thanks to the straight parker
It’s 7:43 on a Tuesday morning. After suffering through 20 minutes of traffic to get from Wildhorse to DHS, I pull into the parking lot with two minutes
to spare, head to my parking spot, just to find an enormous white Ford truck parked diagonally across three spaces. Is it really that hard to park?
Check lines, swing wide, and pull in. Parking straight doesn’t seem like a hard task, but some are befuddled
by this simple steering.
To those who are capable of putting
their car between two lines, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to make sure the car next to you can open their doors, or pull out at all.
Thanks also to those who park crooked but then proceed to slide back out and readjust, because fixing
the mistake is as easy as shifting into reverse. Embrace the slight embarrassment
of not getting it right the first time; make the morning ritual a learning experience.
If you find that after trying, you still park crooked, move to the gym parking lots, where there is an abundance of slanted spots for your special parking needs.
Thanks to the patient driver
Wednesday: the infamous day for a congested parking lot, as all grades are released at the same time. I sit in my car waiting for a chance to squeeze into the main lane and get onto W. 14th Street. Car after car inches up without acknowledging the fact that there are six cars waiting to merge. Faces of the impatient drivers look straight ahead. Maybe if they don’t look at me, they can try to convince themselves I’m not here. Oh! A nice boy in a Volvo is going
to let me in! Score.
The constant parking lot battle is leaving the lot. For many students, the concept of weaving one car in after another is unreasonable. Why be polite when you could just pull up far enough to leave the merging car no chance of squeezing in without
being hit, or doing the hitting? It is a fine art trying to get out of the DHS parking lot, and to those who make the process easier, thank you.
Thank you to those who wave in cars with a smile, even though they’ve been waiting just as long, if not longer. Thanks to those who give a wave of the hand as an acknowledgment
to those Blue Devils
(or Blue Devil parents) who do pause and give up 10 seconds of their day to let you in; their courtesy,
although expected, should be recognized.
To those who don’t let others in, start making kindness in the parking
lot your daily good deed. You will still make it to Chipotle and back before the bell rings even if you sacrifice a millisecond to follow
good driving etiquette; plus your karma will thank you for the thoughtfulness.
Thanks to those who treat the parking lot as a lot, not a playground
A tan Suburban filled with three high school boys drives through the parking lot. All of a sudden one of their bros walking into class decides to jump on the hood of a moving car while another
beats his fists on the driver’s side window. The driver honks loudly and laughs, as if being a moving hazard is humorous. I’ve never seen swing sets or slides in our parking lot, but the parking
lot has turned into a playground of stupidity.
According to the California Department
of Motor Vehicle’s website
for teen drivers, the citation rate for teenage drivers is 2.1 times higher than drivers of all other ages. Teens often call the stereotypes of their car handling unfair, but after the displays of immaturity in the parking lot, the statistics seem more justified.
“Risk perception involves subjectively
assessing the degree of threat posed by a hazard and one’s ability to deal with the threat,” the DMV website says. “Young novice drivers tend to underestimate the crash risk in hazardous situations and overestimate their ability to avoid the threats they identify.”
To those who manage to park and walk to class without flingingthemselves in front of someone’s car, or on top of someone’s car, thank you. Thank you to the Blue Devils who understand the idiocy of these actions, because sometime someone is going to actually get hurt. How are you going to explain that one? “So I jumped in front of my friend’s car, and he just, like, hit me…”
Yes. Yes he did. Surprised?
Thank you to the students who treat the parking lot as just that, a parking lot. To those who haven’t gotten the memo that they’re in high school with the big kids now and that recess ended with graduation
from elementary school, takea look at your actions, both as a driver and as a participant in parking
lot stupidity.
Sure, it’s fun to joke around with your friends. Parking in any way you want may save you a couple seconds, and you may get out of the parking lot seconds faster if you let no other cars in. There are perks to impolite parking lot proceedings, but you must realize that acting this way makes you look like a jerk.
Thank you to all of the decent DHS drivers; hopefully others can follow in your footsteps to make our parking lot a place where courtesy and common sense come without a second thought.