When I was first learning how to drive, my instructor, also known as my dad, taught me one cardinal rule: be a defensive driver. While I follow this rule on the open road, I never thought it would be the most important in parking lots, especially the school lot. I cannot even count the number of times I have had to slam on my brakes because someone is flying out of nowhere to get out of the school gates. Forget failed tests and group projects. No, the most stressful part of my day by far is getting out of the parking lot unscathed.
Last year, I used to wait inside the school until around 2:30 p.m., just catching up with friends before heading to my car. By that time, the traffic was gone and I could get out relatively easily. This year, I am always rushing to practice and different appointments, which is the reason I now pray that my teachers let me out of class even one minute early. Being the third person in line to get out of the parking lot, as opposed to the 10th, can save me minutes, since people tend to forget right-of-way rules the second they are not on the open road.
My paranoia is well deserved, though; my best friend got hit by a massive truck while he was pulling into his spot, so now I am always looking twice as I enter and exit my parking spot. I truly do not understand why there is such a rush to get in and out of the lot. I understand that everyone is tired and wants to get home as soon as possible, but cutting me off to get out one car sooner is not going to cut back your drive home by hours. Waiting five minutes for your turn is not the end of the world, and I promise we will all make it out … Eventually.
Usually, the mornings are not nearly as scary as the afternoons, but they still come with their own struggles. Being stuck behind a line of drivers who all back into their parking spots adds minutes to the drive to my spot. It says a lot when the pitch-black parking lot at 6:45 a.m. is safer than the one in broad daylight, but it is the truth. At least if someone has their reverse lights on, I know it is because they are backing into a spot, and not my car.
Parking lot rage is real, and as the year comes to a close, it is only getting worse. Seniors who cannot wait to graduate are flying out of the lot like their brakes do not exist. Juniors approaching their AP tests are either rushing to tutoring or home to take a power nap. Not to mention those poor sophomores who had no idea what they were getting into, just living in fear of the upperclassmen and rueing the day they decided to drive themselves to school.
However, despite all of the times I have prayed for my life pulling out of the parking lot or have been honked at as if I had just caused a 10-car pileup, anything beats being picked up by my parents. I love them, I really do, but the awkwardness of standing on some lonely street corner, hoping my mom will show up before I get waved at by another friend, is unbearable. I would rather sit in parking lot traffic for an hour than wait 10 minutes for my parents, and that says a lot.
Overall, the lesson to learn is that the parking lot is not a Formula 1 course. If you want to know the true personality of that person you want to be friends with, just send them into the school parking lot at 2:20 p.m., and everything will be clear. High school is stressful enough, and the parking lot really should not add to that stress. While you cannot control the drivers around you, you can control yourself: by being the safe and defensive driver you were hopefully taught to be, you will be making the lot safer one car at a time.
