There have been multiple motor vehicle accidents this year at Athens Drive High School. There have been accidents coming in and out of the senior and junior lots, as well as some that happened inside of the parking lots. The accidents have involved student drivers and others in the surrounding area, such as parents. Some students complain of too much traffic and parents using the student parking lots as a carpool lane.
The traffic on Avent Ferry Road near junior lot becomes heavy in the afternoons due to parents trying to pick up their children. It causes some to feel frustrated and makes going home harder. Additionally, Carsin Gronbach, junior, was recently involved in an accident during the school day.
“It makes everything else more hectic for us and plus we’re new drivers,” said Gronbach, junior. “The parents should go into the carpool lane in front of the library.”
In 2015, over 2,333 teen drivers were killed in motor vehicle accidents. The more traffic there is on the main road, the harder it is for drivers to see getting out. Kathy Guerrero is a junior who was involved in an accident pulling out onto Avent Ferry.
“It’s really hard to see around all of the cars that are pulling into the junior lot; we’re all just in a rush to get where we need to be,” said Guerrero.
Traffic in the parking lots can become backed up, making it take even more time for the students to leave at the end of the day. Cars cannot get out if they are blocked by the incoming traffic and other stopped cars. Everything becomes more and more clustered.
“It gets really bad, to the point of where it’s like standstill, to the point where we don’t even move,” said Gronbach.
Some feel that although traffic can become kind of heavy in the junior lot and that there should still be two areas for parent drop-off. This would keep the traffic split up into two areas instead of just being backed up in one spot.
“I think it makes more sense to have it [the carpool lane] in the junior lot and the other lot, just from a congestion standpoint,” said Jennifer Dutton, English teacher.
