Driving in circles around the parking lot can be very nerve racking for students, especially those who are going to be late for class.
“The first weeks of school can be very hectic. With a lot of traffic, what we try to do is first fill up Lot L then Lot H then Lot F. We want to get people into stalls as soon as possible, so people aren’t driving around in circles and getting into accidents,” Patrick Knox, community service officer, said.
“People who park on Manhattan Beach Boulevard tend to want to impede the flow of traffic by just stopping out there and waiting for a parking place and that creates a traffic accident, because what happens is people swerve out of the way at the last minute,” Sgt. Kirk Johnston said
Parking during the first month can be very difficult, but due to the overload of cars, the police are allowing people to park at the end of the parking lanes for the next few weeks with a warning rather than the usual $30 parking ticket.
“Our goal is to reduce collisions and accidents; it’s not to write more tickets out there. It’s to get the message out that this is a college campus with a lot of people and a lot of cars, so there’s a lot of things that happen that can result in an accident,” Johnston said.
The campus police offer several other services for students, including an escort service, a courtesy shuttle as well as a vehicle battery jump and vehicle unlock service.
“The courtesy shuttle is there for everybody. If you’re in Parking Lot L and your feet hurt or you don’t feel safe and you want a ride from your car to your class or vice versa, go ahead and call for the shuttle. It’s there for everybody; there are no special circumstances,” Knox said.
The courtesy shuttle is reached through the campus police from 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. and is free to all students and visitors, but is not allowed to leave the campus.
“When you dial 9-1-1, all the pay phones at EC go to the campus police. At the blue emergency phones just press the red button to reach campus police, but with cell phones you have to ask to be directed to the campus station,…. although the emergency phone near the Natural Science Building is not working because of construction,” Knox said.
Most students don’t know about the courtesy shuttle.
“No I haven’t heard of the courtesy shuttle. Yeah, for sure I’d use it during the winter when it gets darker earlier; I don’t want to walk to my car by myself when I have a lot of books; I can’t exactly run fast,” Aya Hatasukade, foreign relations major, said.
The department doesn’t have the resources it wants, it recently received a grant through the Office of Traffic Safety through the federal government which funds different traffic safety programs. This included a digital message board that can tell drivers their speed.
“We just didn’t have eighteen thousand dollars to go out and purchase this electronic message board. So we went ahead and applied through OTS for a grant,” Johnston said.
It took about four months to write, submit and get approved for the grant and paid for the electronic message board and some promotional materials to promote safe driving practices. The department is also making a brochure about safe driving for students.
“A part of the grant was also to go ahead and to increase our directed actions on seat belt enforcement, which was real important to the state of California and the federal government,” Johnston said.
“Hopefully, if we slow the traffic down and we get people to comply with posted regulations, we will be able to reduce the number of accidents and injuries on and around campus,” Johnston said.
