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The sun is shining. The sky is blue. ‘Frank,’ a student at FHS, peacefully strolls down the street. He turns his head to wave to a friend when suddenly... KERSHMACK!!!! A silver truck, blindly speeding out of the parking lot, has crashed into the poor student and sent him flying through the air. Frank lies in the street dazed and bruised.
The driver protests that it wasn’t his fault. “But I didn’t see him … He should have looked… There was no place else to park … How was I supposed to know he was there?” Slowly a crowd begins to form around the downed student.
The driving situation at Flathead High School is bad and getting worse. If you get here less than an hour before school, you’ll be double-parking on Pluto. Problem is, there are clumps of people standing in the street, like ducks in a shooting gallery, just waiting to be hit by a late student. After school when the bell rings, it’s a mad dash for your car … so you can wait for 30 minutes at the stop sign, while kids casually walk over your car knowing you’re not going anywhere.
Students and administrators have wrung their hands over this one for years. All you have to do is break the problem down and the answers become suddenly simple:
Problem: There is no parking because there are too many people at FHS, and the crowds aren’t going to lessen because you just got a new car and don’t want to take a bus anymore.
Solutions:
1. Save gas and car pool;
2. Ride the bus, after all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger;
3. Walk, ride a bike or ski to school.
Problem: Students stop in the middle of the street to discuss Susie’s new haircut and Paul’s new shade of eyeliner.
Solutions:
1. Run them over, go to jail, and you won’t have to worry about parking anymore;
2. Students: talk on the sidewalks, which are made for loitering;
3. If you see a car coming, MOVE!!!
Make life easier for yourself and everybody else — pay more attention to the road than that cute girl at the crosswalk. People are as slow to change their behavior as students are to get out of the way of oncoming traffic. If something doesn’t happen soon, Frank’s going to end up in a body cast next time, and it isn’t going to be pretty.
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