Sometimes, we swing too wide. Other times, we pull in too close. On occasion, we park outside the lines, call it a day and head to class. This is what a typical morning of driving as a teenager looks like. We tell ourselves that a bad park job never hurts anybody, it could be worse. A little speeding doesn’t make a difference since it’s just the parking lot. And that if we leave a few wrappers and cups where we parked, it’s not a big deal because someone else is going to pick them up. Right? What about when our negligence leads to tickets, raised insurance rates, damaged cars and fearful teens walking in the parking lots? Where do we draw the line?

Students can receive their school permit six months after getting their permit. Being as young as fourteen and a half years old, can they be trusted on the roads by themselves? Let alone in a school lot full of other teens?

With the poor parking jobs, cars filled with more people than seatbelts, speeding on both the right and wrong side of the parking lots, dumping our trash where we please, door dings, hit and runs, blaring music and students screaming at one another. The list goes on.

When students’ lives are put at risk in their own school’s parking lots, something needs to be done. Studies done by the National Safety Council have shown that almost 20% of car accidents occur in parking lots, with 60,000 of those being injuries and 500 being deaths. However, these numbers don’t tell the whole story and we need to talk about why these accidents are happening in Kennedy parking lots.

As a teen, the confidence we have, overriding our common sense in dangerous situations, can be scarier than the danger itself. An overwhelming amount of this confidence is found in Kennedy’s parking lots, which isn’t something to be proud of.

“We see students hit each other while backing up or parking too fast,” principal Jason Kline said. “They’re in a hurry, they get distracted and while there are only accidents, tickets and insurance costs will continue to rise for them.”

The irresponsibility of students costs them their money and their time. Students have commented on how their attendance is affected by the amount of spaces in the lots and the distance they need to walk from the parking lot to the school, especially in the winter months.

“I remember there was once I was coming through the baseball field gates, I was worried I wouldn’t get the rest of the way to the building,” senior Natalie Ruggeri said. “They cancel school for bus stops but those kids are only really there for five minutes. They don’t keep in mind that they have students coming in from [parking] lots that are a couple blocks away through snow, ice and gravel.”

This means students would overfill the north and south lots and the rest of us would park in the streets and neighborhoods bordering the school. Making the once five-minute walk from the end of the south lot a fifteen-minute walk from the neighborhood a few blocks down.

Surrounding Kennedy is the Good Shepherd, Lovely Lane and Oakland Church lots Kennedy students park in and these lots are Kennedy’s best solution to the overcrowding in the school parking lots. When students sign up and purchase their parking passes over the summer, some of us fail to consider that we can lose those passes. Or worse, the ability to park at the churches.

“The churches call me when there are things that students are doing that they shouldn’t be and I will make a point to go out there,” Student Resources Officer Drew Tran said. “So that is monitored and there are consequences.”

If we continue to be reckless and inconsiderate and ignore countless warnings and reminders, we lose privileges. Our stupidity and careless behavior will get the best of us sooner rather than later. Access to park in the surrounding church lots is a gift, not a right.

“There is a city code that is written into law, stating that anybody who is a student, or not in an official capacity [meaning they aren’t an employee] cannot exceed the speed limit of five miles per hour on school property,” Tran said.

As Kline and Tran have expressed their concerns about the church lot parking passes being taken away, we as students need to set our stupidity and poor decision-making aside to ensure our ability to utilize them. By taking the extra thirty seconds to park better, slow down on turns, drive with as much caution as a teenager has and take care of the lots, we can have them for years to follow. Do better.