Very Bad Parking Habits at School Events

(published in Woodbury Bulletin 09/29/2004)

As a parent of school-age children, I drive to events held at the various schools around town. Frequently I find the parking practices of others in attendance to be rather poor. Actually, worse than poor--they are downright dangerous.

In most cases, there are plenty of free spaces in the large parking lots. Of course, the free spaces tend to be a bit farther from the action. So many people opt to park along the perimeters of the lot. (It often gets even worse, when people start parking on both sides of the lane, leaving only a narrow gap for traffic.)

People would never park this way in a shopping-mall parking lot, because they know they would likely be towed. However, that fear is absent at after-hours school-based events. First a few people capitalize on this knowledge, then more follow, as the example is set.

The soccer fields at Bailey are ideally arranged for a tragedy. The popular near-edge of the lot is downhill from the soccer fields. Someday, a young soccer player will be kicking their ball along, after practice, and it will roll down the hill. They will rush after it, and run out between two parked vans, right into the path of an oncoming vehicle. And if that vehicle happens to be a van or SUV, the driver may not even see the small child they are about to hit; they will only realize what has happened as they experience the sickening feeling of driving over a human body.