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The wild world of campus parking

They circle around, searching for weak and or defenseless prey to take advantage of. We are not talking about animals; we are speaking of a breed of Shoreline student. Throughout school we have been taught about the “Fight or Flight” instinct. In any given situation a person must decide whether it is right to fight or flee for what they desire or need. Who would have ever thought that we would need this instinct for our parking situation?

I was walking to class from the parking lot when a student confessed to me, “This (parking) is the worst part of my day.” I agree. Most of us have to deal with this on a daily basis, the price of making our education one of our main priorities.

From my experience, there appears to be three different breeds of student parkers at the College. The first I call “Turtles.” These students are characterized by arriving to the campus, choosing a row of parking stalls, and laying claim to a row by waiting patiently for a parking stall to open up. While other students seek out a stall, this breed of student can save their energy and gas.

I call the second breed “Hawks.” This breed decides to take its chances with wandering through the parking lot searching for an open parking stall. While this breed is roaming around, it seems to be aware of and show respect to the Turtles for their patience. Therefore, the Hawks allow the Turtles to take their stalls. The Turtles and Hawks appear to be on the same page, so why do students still have to fight for there parking stalls?

Because the third breed, “Vultures,” roam the parking lot taking any vacant or soon-to-be vacant stall. The Hawks and Vultures are very similar, as they both take their chances with circling the parking lot looking for parking stalls. The main difference between the two is that the Vultures take any stall they can see. Whereas there appeared to be no conflict between the Turtles and Hawks, the Vultures create conflicts with the other two breeds. Vultures seem to be either ignorant of or just don’t care about the unspoken rules of parking.

Here is an example of a Vulture creating a conflict with a Turtle. Just a little over a week ago, I was acting as a Turtle, waiting for parking when I overheard a parking conflict. As I listened to the yelling I gathered information that a Vulture had turned into a row of parking stalls just in time to see a student leaving. At the other end of the aisle was the Turtle waiting patiently for the student to back out. The Vulture sped up to stall and pulled in before the Turtle could reach it.

The Turtle, having had enough of being taken advantage of, let the Vulture know how it felt. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out what the Turtle said, but I could make out the Vultures reply: “I don’t see any parking rules written anywhere!”

As a student, I understand that we all need to get to our classes and that parking is not easy at our campus. These are facts. It is my belief that the only way to work on this problem is for students to 1) be aware of the “unspoken parking rules” and 2) show courtesy to other students by respecting these rules. What are the unspoken parking rules? If you see a student waiting at the end of an aisle, assume that they are acting as a Turtle. If you happen to come across an open stall, or a student backing out, please check to see if anyone is waiting for that stall. Attempt to be courteous; we are all in the same boat together.

In the last year it seems that road rage has been getting worse, never better. This trend seems to be true for parking rage as well. There appears to be no immediate solution for this problem. Do we as students continue to ignore this problem and let it continue to escalate? This seems to be the easiest thing to do, but obviously it hasn’t worked thus far.

Please ask yourself one question: “How much is that parking stall worth?” Stress, emotional distress, property damage, verbal/physical fighting? These are all possible results of impatience, conceit, and being taken advantage of. For what? A parking stall? It’s time for us as student to learn how to play well with others. We are in college now, not elementary school.