It is 2:15pm on a cold, January day at NASH. I’m sitting in my last period class eager to leave the premises of the school. The bell rings, I go out to my car, and I try to make my way through the traffic. However, there is one huge issue. Leaving school is not as easy as it seems.

Why, you might ask? Two words: student drivers.

The other day as I was leaving the school, I experienced a driver deliberately ignoring my car and not letting me go in front of her. I say “my car” and not “me,” because it’s not personal — she was ignoring the 3,300 lb car pulling out in front of her car. Every driver in front of me was taking turns, all being nice people, when this driver just drove straight out in front of me. She didn’t even look to see if my car was pulling out. I slammed on my horn to get her attention because she could not (or would not) even look at me. In that moment, I decided a person knows they’re being a horrible driver when they can’t even look at the other driver in the eyes because they know they are in the wrong.

Despite the two-and-a-half parking lots at NASH, entering and especially leaving have proven to be quite chaotic. I really do think the system was designed to work well and have the best entering and exiting routine. But in all honesty, it does not work well at all — not because of the system, but because of all of the reckless drivers.

We all want to go home. We all have places to be after school, so no one really wants to be at school for longer than they have to. However, there’s a difference between not wanting to be at school and preventing anyone from leaving and ticking off everyone around you.

I know the administration can’t prevent juniors and seniors from driving to school, because anyone who has a license, a car, and $100 has the right to drive to school (on another note, why do we have to pay North Allegheny $100 to park here for the year? Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that we have to spend money to park in a lot that my parents’ tax dollars pay for, but that’s an argument for another day).

But why not make all of the kids who sign up for a parking permit take a short class in the summer that provides instruction on the proper way of driving on the NASH campus?  The class could help students understand the concept of being patient when letting buses leave the campus in the morning and the afternoon, the importance of using turn signals, and the need not to drive 35 mph when there are a hundred other cars in the parking lot.

While not many students may be a fan of the class idea, I think we all should at least talk about not only the annoying aspects of aggressive driving but also the dangers of it. If you speed while leaving the school because you’re in a rush, you could potentially miss seeing a pedestrian walking across the street. Students leave at different times after school, and everyone is on their own agenda. This school has nearly 1400 students, so one wrong turn or one extra step on the gas could severely affect the safety of the students of NASH.

I just don’t understand why it is so hard for students to respect other student drivers. Is it really that big of a deal if you are home two minutes later than expected? Is it really worth putting other kids’ lives in potential danger?

Think about that the next time you decide to zoom ahead to go home and eat leftover pizza.