Almost every morning, students who drive to school have to sit in a line for longer than necessary just to park in the student parking lot at Naples High School. There have been many instances that accidents were just barely avoided at this small intersection. Could a four-way-stop help prevent the backup of traffic and accidents?
The intersection that feeds into the student parking area is located at 13th Street North and Goodlette-Frank road. The intersection has been a source of stress and frustration for many students and homeowners located along 13th Street North. Sometimes it can take students 10 to 20 minutes to exit or enter student parking.
With all the traffic that leads into the parking lot, some students choose to walk, bike or even park elsewhere just to avoid it. The traffic is so stressful that several other students partake in a common routine of re-routing their school journey, simply to avoid the obnoxious traffic.
“I became so annoyed with sitting in the traffic everyday that I started going down side streets near school in hopes of avoiding traffic,” sophomore Susanna Dejcz said.
A four-way-stop has been on the minds of students. An Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) study found that there was an 80% reduction in injury crashes from four-way-stops. A four-way-stop is a traffic management system which requires vehicles on all approaches to a road intersection to stop, signaled by a stop sign, in order to proceed..
The intersection is not perfect and definitely has room for improvement. By adding a four-way-stop, many students, staff and parents would feel much safer allowing their children to drive to school.
“I have dropped my daughter off through student parking and [saw] how hectic it can become,” Naples High mother, Karen Lee, said.
Students believe having a four-way-stop would make their morning commute less stressful, allowing them to arrive to class with a calm state of mind.
“It’s just so stressful and something that I most definitely could live without going through every single day,” junior Rory Nichols said.
Unfortunately, the majority of students are left with no other choice than to park in student parking and deal with the heavy traffic two times a day, five days a week.
“Something has to be done about the intersection,” Nichols said.
