Campus parking lots are full of illiterate meat geysers

Road rage.

It affects many drivers and nearly always gets the better of those it afflicts. Lately, it’s been a symptom of an epidemic sweeping the MHCC parking lots.

Road rage is characterized by shaking fists, gesticulating hands, shouting voices, raising blood pressures, popping neck veins, swearing like a sailor, etc. It involves a minority of drivers who can never get where they are going fast enough raging at the majority of Portland drivers who seem to never get within ten mph of any speed limit anywhere.

However, the road rage on campus is primarily directed at drivers who can’t seem to read a sign properly or pedestrians who have zero to no common sense. Here are a few driving examples:

The main entrance to the campus has a sign for oncoming traffic that allows turns without stopping. Nearly every morning, I find myself stopped because someone can’t read. Good thing they’re going to school, I guess.
The stop sign in front of the Early Childhood Center is frequently ignored. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen Public Safety issue a citation for someone running the sign. The sign says stop — so stop. The sign is there for a reason, morons.

The yield sign by the turn-around in front of the fountain. It says clearly on the sign “YIELD.” At the risk of being over-obvious, that means if you see pedestrians, stop. If not, then full-speed ahead. Do we have that cleared up now?
How does one combat this full-fledged ignorance? Institutionalized driving courses. Simply put: Introduction to Driving like a Competent Human Being followed by Driving with a Purpose 101. If these meat geysers are going to be on campus anyway, we might as well give them something practical to learn.

Let’s not forget that the aforementioned meat geysers are also contributing to the road rage on campus. Chief among the pedestrian offenses is their annoying—and disturbingly— frequent insistence upon walking in the lanes. Campus is full of crosswalks and sidewalks. It might be that the college finds them aesthetically pleasing, but more likely, they’re for pedestrian use. A key example is that pedestrians seem to love walking in the same entrance with the no-stop-turns sign. Let it be known that there are no sidewalks or crosswalks here while they are plentiful on the left-hand side of the lane. These are also known as the pedestrian entrances. Novel!

All joking aside, though, these are rather annoying problems that don’t get any better as people get more familiar with the campus parking lot. In fact, as this is my second year at MHCC, things are worse this term than in any of my previous four terms. So, how do we combat these problems? I advocate for a more bold approach to honking at slow or brain-dead drivers and a policy of nudging pedestrians that get in the way of cars when not in a designated crosswalk. I’m not saying run anyone over, but give them a little lovin’ so they’ll learn their lesson. After getting a few passive-aggressive calf bruises, they should figure it out.

So, my fellow Saints, here’s to a more enlightened approach to the parking lots. A parting note to drivers — pay attention to the signs — and to pedestrians — use some damn common sense