Two drivers sustained minor injuries when their cars crashed on the corner of Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and Herriman Avenue on Aug. 19, with one of them flipped and burning. While no one affiliated with the school was involved, many Saratoga parents and students saw the aftermath and recognized it as a reminder of the dangers inherent to driving.
Principal Greg Louie sent an email notifying students and parents about the incident and urging them to be safe on the roads. In a later email, he informed them about the complaints he had been receiving from neighbors about student driving and warned students that their lunch driving privileges could be revoked if unsafe practices continued.
Senior Matilda Hickman-Smith, who saw the Aug. 19 accident, said that while the accident didn’t shock her, it did remind her of the prevalence of car crashes on the roads and sometimes unsafe driving habits of students.
For instance, she often sees people parking in undesignated areas and driving recklessly.
“Unsafe driving makes me uncomfortable because I drive a large car that takes up a lot of space, and people get very close to me,” Hickman-Smith said.
To avoid chaotic traffic, she tries to arrive at 7:45 a.m. and then naps in her car before school starts.
Assistant principal Brian Safine said he frequently sees speeding in the school parking lot, distracted driving and illegal parking and dropoffs. He said some parents stop on the shoulder of Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road in the bike lane to let their children out rather than driving to designated areas, a clearly illegal practice.
The heavy traffic around the front parking lot worsened when the back parking lot was closed off for teacher parking last year; however, Safine said that that change was necessary.
“Teachers were trying to come in and do their jobs or leave to go to appointments or other obligations off campus, and they couldn’t go anywhere because there was traffic in the back lot,” he said. “The staff feels really strongly that the back lot should be teacher parking and not a dropoff.”
He recommends that parents and students arrive before 7:50 a.m., as the roads around the school become backed up between 7:50 and 8:15 a.m., or seek alternative methods of transportation. Also, he hopes parents avoid creating the long pick-up line in the afternoon by arranging a slightly later pick-up time with their children.
“Anything that our parents do to take cars off the road makes the travel time shorter and safer,” Safine said. “A change in terms in traffic around our school and every other school in America is contingent on families changing their driving habits or walking or riding bikes.”
He said that the school is always open to suggestions from the community to improve the ease and safety of driving.
For example, the school’s administration worked with the city to install a lighting crosswalk on Herriman Avenue. It will continue to collaborate with the sheriff’s department to ensure that driving laws, such as following speed limits are enforced.
“Any chance that we get to work together with our partners to make the area around schools safer, we’ll continue to work at,” he said.