Vanguard

Issue date: 10/1/07 Section: Opinion

I had successfully crammed an entire year's worth of dormitory life into my car, had said my tearful goodbyes to all of my friends and had accepted the fact that after the glory of freshman year, I would be returning home for a few months. Only one obstacle stood between me and the trip home: I practically owed my soul to the campus police department by way of parking ticket debt. I emptied the remnants of my bank account (not that much after said freshman year glory), cashed my last check and finally had enough to pay my debt. $175 later and the lady at the desk is giving me a satisfied smirk as I hand over what would have been summer fun money.
But really, with the parking and driving situation as it is here at South Alabama, what is a freshman girl supposed to do? It didn't take me long to figure out that whatever the JagTran is for, it's not for getting to class on time, and as spread out as the buildings are on this campus, walking to class in Mobile summers was likely to provoke heat strokes or dangerous falls. Arriving to class drenched in sweat or rain or with broken bones was just not on my list of ways to be a cool college kid, nor was it conducive to being a good student in class.
Being the positive thinker that we are all constantly told we should be, I developed the motto for parking on campus that allowed me to do so with a clear conscience and with no regard towards the debt I was steadily acquiring. I looked at the parking tickets not as punishment for illegal parking, but as a minimal fee I paid to park wherever I wanted. So that's exactly what I did, for an entire year. Two years later, and I've learned a few more things about on-campus driving and parking - mainly that it's pretty awful for everyone involved, and it's not looking like it's going to improve any time soon. Here's a look at your options - I'll let you pick the lesser of evils.
Driving to class - The phrase "driving to class" is really a misnomer when used in reference to South. "Driving to class" means that you drive up to your building, get out of the car and walk a convenient distance to your class. Here at South, you can either park in the back of the parking lot of your building, or you can trust that whole theory that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and park in some random parking lot that happens to be a straight-shot away from your building. Actually, parking near your building isn't really an option, because it's a very rare occurrence to find a spot. You can take your chances and drive around looking for a spot, but by the time you decide that all hope is lost for finding one, you have one minute to park in your usual back end, straight-shot spot, grab your books and make it to class before it starts. Oh, and running across the parking lot to class isn't a good idea, because as we've all probably noticed, South-goers aren't the most pedestrian friendly people.

Continued...

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