Whenever I ride with friends or a family member to get to or from school there are always people that drive at an insane rate of speed around the school and into the parking lot. It’s almost every day I see someone driving fast, and honestly, I’m not the only person seeing this happening.

I’ve seen many drivers who have almost caused accidents or have almost clipped the ends of other cars and buses. I’ve also seen drivers swerve around speed bumps, quickly turning away from them like they are drivers in Tokyo Drift. They barely miss the parked cars nearby.

From my experience, drivers do this because they are in too big of a hurry to get out of the parking lot. It’s scary when a driver speeds around the school bus almost clipping us to avoid the speed bump or because the bus is really slow. All of us know that cutting off buses and cars isn’t what’s taught in driving school. Beyond losing a driver’s license, reckless drivers can risk major penalties for dangerous driving in a school zone. It’s also dangerous when they don’t even care to even slow down or stop when the bus is turning into the bus drop off in the morning. Students and parents just slowly crawl up on the bus until it finally goes into the U-drop off.

However, there’s more than just trying to avoid speed bumps. When students and parents are arriving and leaving they quickly turn into or out of the parking lot, not yielding for a student running or biking across the sidewalk or street. I’ve seen cars pulling into the parking lot after A and B lunches swinging right into the parking lot barely missing students walking to class or when they are coming to school and leaving school. Often, kids who are late for school or maybe late from lunch, are most likely to speed down Old San Antonio Road and not look both ways for cars or students.

When parents are dropping off their kids they just speed into the entrance way for Akins, cutting off people trying to leave and others needing to park in the visitor area. When they try to leave the entranceway, they oftentimes cut the car off that is trying to get to the main parking area. I’ve seen students who are in the crosswalk, with the right of way almost hit by parents who don’t seem to care. It’s really scary when I’m trying to get to my Aunt’s car across the drive-thru and, a parent just comes past speeding by not even looking for me or other kids walking. Sometimes it’s not always the driver that makes the mistake not looking or stopping. e students that walk also have a responsibility as well. ey need to start looking for the cars that are coming into the Akins parking lot. When it comes to a person and a car, the car is always going to win.

I’ve noticed when I’m on the bus, there are some administrators and AISD police officers that are standing at the crosswalks near Old San Antonio Road and near the portables. I’m very glad that they started doing that because of the last two incidents where students were hit by cars that have happened back there. That’s where the buses go and where most of the students come to and from school. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured or killed in those two incidents. With the new crossing guards at the Old San Antonio Road, I think this is a great start to the control of reckless driving in the Akins parking lot. It’s a step forward to keep everyone safe.

But also, it’s everybody’s responsibility to look out for others when they are either driving or walking. It’s dangerous when people really don’t pay attention and someone gets really injured from just one person not paying attention to where they are going on the road or are too distracted by doing another activity besides driving responsibly.