Hundreds of students, teachers and parents pour in and out of the school parking lot everyday.

The 800 parking spots are almost constantly filled, and parents and buses line the aisles before and after school. Not surprisingly, students, staff and parents have fallen prey to parking violations and accidents.

Administration implements a strict student parking code that can be found in student planners. All students are required to buy a parking permit and display it in the lower left hand corner of their back windshield. Students are only allowed to park in stalls with white stripes.

They will be issued a $25 ticket if they are parked in staff or visitor parking spots, or are not properly displaying a student parking permit. Multiple tickets could result in a wheel-lock and an additional $25 is charged to removed the wheel-lock. Multiple tickets could also result in a vehicle being towed at the owner’s expense.The student planners allude to other parking regulation specific to Lawrence High but fails to disclose them.

Surprisingly only 13 parking tickets have been issued this school year.

Parking violations aside, a more serious issue plagues Lawrence High: Safety.

“I think most people in this school would agree with me that sometimes it’s even very dangerous to walk in our parking lot,” school resource officer Mike Cobb said. “People want to get home, want to get out of here, and they forget that they need to be safe.”

Junior Natalie Ballard agrees.

“I think its really unsafe,” Ballard said. “You can easily hit people.”

That is exactly what happened to Ballard and other students. Remarkably only six accidents have been reported this entire school year, but as Cobb admits, there have probably been more. There is no way to know how many accidents have gone unreported.

Cobb believes most of the accidents at Lawrence High, reported and unreported, are caused by inattention. Statistics from Pew Research Center support Cobb’s belief, citing cell phone use as the leading distraction among teen drivers. According to government statistics, 40 percent of all American teenagers report being in a car with a driver that was using a cell phone in a way that put passengers in danger.

Inattention caused junior Kavyn Poettker to hit a parked car in the annex parking lot.

“I was trying to turn into the slotted area and I just fully went into someone else’s car,” Poettker said. “I wasn’t really paying attention and I was trying to turn, but it just wasn’t wide enough.”

Improving safety within the parking lot is difficult. Junior Zoe Schneider recently had her car hit, and doesn’t believe student driving will improve anytime soon.

“I don’t think the design is so bad,” Schneider said. “People just need to pay attention more. We have some bad drivers at LHS.”

Poettker agrees with Schneider, it appears very little can be done to improve the parking lots.

“I don’t think there’s much we can actually do,” she said. “We’re not going to post traffic cops out there.”

Cobb has one simple piece of advice for student drivers: Slow down.

“People have got to slow down and pay attention to the fact that they’re driving a very heavy steel car that could hurt people,” Cobb said.