Last week, Niles West added new speed bumps around the parking lot. Now, while this seems like a great idea and it was supposed to be helpful, I do not think it makes the parking lot any better. Honestly, it makes it way worse.

The whole purpose of these speed bumps was to make sure students were driving slower and more carefully through the parking lot. While I agree that there can be many reckless drivers that pass through the school, and these speed bumps can make sure students are driving slower, there are just too many of them. There are speed bumps before and after each stop sign. Now whenever I drive through the parking lot, I have to basically stop about ten times.

This is not really the problem though. I don’t know who put these speed bumps up, but I think those same people need to take them out. On Friday the speed bumps were added, and only one email was sent out saying they were being installed.

Driving over the speed bumps is atrocious. When I go two miles per hour over them, my entire car shakes, and this is not an exaggeration. Because of this, I am scared that my tires are going to get ruined because the speed bumps are pretty rough. The school had better pay for my new tires because they know they are getting so worn out.

When I went on a field trip, the bus had to go through the side of the parking lot that the speed bumps were at. This was my first time going over the speed bumps on a bus, and I did not expect the bus to shake as much as it did when we went over them. You would think that since a bus’s tires are huge, you would not feel the speed bumps much, but I was sitting in the back. And right when we went over the bump, I jumped up out of my seat.

It takes longer to get out of the parking lot. Now I cannot even take that way as a shortcut when I want to go off-campus and get food because there is nothing short about it. I will take twice as long.

All in all the speed bumps are way too rough! This year the school and students at West have had many issues with the parking lot, and while some of the changes have made big improvements, the speed bumps are not one of them. The speed bumps have got to go!