When the dismissal bell rings at 2:25 it is a common sight to see juniors and seniors rushing out of Neuqua Valley High School to get their cars and beat the traffic out onto 95th street. Some students have found an alternative that has caused many concerns. Officer Tom McDonald of both the freshman center and Fry building was notified that many high school student drivers were cutting through the parking lot of the Fry building to avoid the congested area of 95th street right outside of Neuqua.
After receiving complaints from the preschool at the Fry building, McDonald monitored the parking lot for a few days. The preschool students at Fry get picked up at the same time that the Main building is let out, and many students were driving erratically, speeding in the parking lot or even sometimes towards parents and their children. “I was getting complaints from parents that students were speeding by as they crossing the street with their children, and sometimes even swerving their cars toward them,” said McDonald.
According to page 36 in the Student Handbook, students may only enter and exit the school parking lot via 95th street. Travel between Main Campus and Frontier by car is also prohibited. Using these rules to make his case, McDonald brought this to the school’s attention. The entrance to the Frontier parking lot is currently being monitored by a dean after school hours, and if any erratic driving does occur, depending on the severity, a student may receive a Saturday school, loose his or her parking spot, or even be charged with reckless driving.
This type of erratic driving that teen drivers have demonstrated has played an important part in what encouraged the state of Illinois to ammend their driving laws, and enforce more restrictions for teen drivers at the start of this year.
Many parents are glad to hand over the keys to their children, no longer responsible for scheduling their plans around the child’s priorities. Then Friday night comes, and that is when driving becomes the biggest concern. Alcohol related accidents set aside; erratic driving is a common stereotype for a teenage driver. They hold an uncomfortably high percentage of driving accidents, and since January 1st, 2008, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White put in place the new teen driver safety law.
The new year brought new requirements to both obtain and retain a drivers license when under the age of eighteen years. Teenage drivers are now under the spot light more then ever. They are required to do double the time of supervised driving, a total 50 hours, and they must wait nine months prior to applying for their license. In addition, when a minor does get his or her license, for the first six months they are not allowed more than one person in their car, except for immediate family, and have to follow stricter curfew rules of 10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, unless coming from a religious, school, or work event. Though these new restrictions did not please many high school students, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety estimated that these new laws, if strictly applied, could reduce fatal teen accidents by 38 percent. With these estimations, the state was more then ready to try out these new changes.
True to their word, Their estimations were well exceeded, as of April 15th 2008; the accident rates have been reduced by an estimated 61 percent, going down from 57 deaths in 2007 to 22 in 2008. Quoted in an Illinois State Police Release, Governor Rod Blagojevich believes the “efforts of these students, combined with several tough new Illinois laws, are making a big difference in reducing the number of teen fatalities on our roads.” Secretary Jesse White states in the same press release that he is “encouraged by the significant decrease in teen driving deaths so far in 2008… [it] is clearly having a positive impact on teen driving safety.”
Both Governor Rod Blagojevich and Secretary Jesse White are pleased so far with the results of the new driving laws. They plan to keep these new regulations for teen drivers, hoping to gain more success and see even more of a decline in teen accident rates.
By Pallavi Bamzai, staff writer
