Hit-and-runs, frequent car accidents afflict GBN parking lots

School resource officer John Seiler conducts traffic as a stream of drivers leave school via Second Street to Techny Road. The number of reported car accidents in the GBN parking lot has increased from previous years. Photo by Sydney Stumme-Berg.
School resource officer John Seiler conducts traffic as a stream of drivers leave school via Second Street to Techny Road. The number of reported car accidents in the GBN parking lot has increased from previous years. Photo by Sydney Stumme-Berg.

The bell rings, signaling the end of the school day. Juniors and seniors shove through the doors of the science wing, rushing to their cars to be the first ones out of the parking lot. They fight to beat the traffic down Second Street, swerving out of their parking spots at speeds that appear to be 20 mph above the speed limit.

As of mid-October, eight car accidents in the Glenbrook North parking lots were reported to the Northbrook Police Department, showing an increase in car accidents reported over the first one and a half months of the school year during the past four years. The list does not include accidents that go unreported to the police department.

One reported accident this school year was between seniors Kendall Michaels and Jeffrey Vdovets in the tennis court parking lot.

According to Michaels, she was pulling forward out of her parking spot into the exit lane while Vdovets was backing out of his parking spot into the same lane.

“He must’ve just not seen me,” said Michaels. “I was turning, and he was backing out at the same time, and we just hit each other.”

Michaels said they both got out of their cars after the accident and accused the other of hitting their car.

“I was backing out of my spot, and [Michaels] ran into my back end,” said Vdovets. “… She didn’t calculate the turn [correctly] and ran into me.”

According to Vdovets, the two students went to the dean’s office, where they were told to return the next day. However, the police department was called to the parking lot to resolve the situation.

Vdovets said he believes these accidents occur because students want to “beat the traffic” in the parking lots and down Second Street, and as a result, drive recklessly.

Frank Whalen, driver education teacher at GBN, said students rushing to and from school and inexperience are big reasons why car accidents occur.

“Drivers ages 15 to 24 account for 14 percent of the driving population, but they are responsible for 30 percent of the accidents,” said Whalen. “Now let’s combine that with 20 percent of all accidents happen in parking lots, so we are kind of looking at a double whammy: inexperienced drivers who account for more accidents than they should and in an area that’s proven dangerous inherently.”

To avoid these accidents, junior Jasmine Mui said she parks in the cages because she “does not trust” students who park in the lots.

According to junior Ellie Linforth, she was involved in a hit-and-run car accident in the athletics parking lot last January.

“I noticed my [side view] mirror was off, but I had no idea where it was,” said Linforth. “Later, I found the [side view] mirror underneath the car, … and I found $40 on my windshield.”

Linforth said when the administration reviewed video footage the next day, the student that hit her car was identified.

Dean of students William Eike said there is camera supervision that views specific areas in the parking lots and occasional paraprofessional supervision in the lots.

“Periodically, if we have [enough] personnel where we can move people around and free someone up from other areas inside the building, we try to put someone outside [in the parking lots],” said Eike. “So on a temporary basis, we can get people out by Second Street … just to kind of help observe and be a deterrent to people driving inappropriately.

Senior Florence Kang said she uses a camera mounted on her rearview mirror to record what happens around her car, so if an accident was to occur, she would know exactly what happened.

“I’ve heard about a lot of accidents: people driving too quickly down Second Street, and one person would stop suddenly, and there would be a whole domino effect of crashes,” said Kang. “In a way, teenagers think they are invincible by saying, ‘I’m not going to get hurt, nothing is going to happen,’ but obviously [accidents do happen].”

Nichole Morris, principal researcher at the University of Minnesota, said teenagers lack familiarity with driving, making distractions all the more dangerous.

“It’s especially problematic when a teen [texts and drives] because they lack the experience to recover from an error as well as an experienced driver does.

“A teen driver sees every situation equally, it seems, so they are going to pick up the phone and text whether they are approaching a curve or an intersection or a straightaway road,” said Morris. “All of those appear to be the same threat and danger to them.”

According to Whalen, safe driving has to do with experience, which is what a teenager lacks.

“It all fits together,” said Whalen. “[Teenagers] are so excited at 16 to get [their] driver’s license, and we need to be careful. We have to temper that excitement. We just have to be so cognizant of the fact that driving can be so dangerous if we make poor decisions.”