By Logan Castro Eagle Eye Staff Writer
El Camino parents are dropping off their students dangerously and it recently led to the collision of an EC student and a parent.
The parent parked on El Camino Avenue in front of EC and then attempted a dangerous U-turn, hitting EC student Maddi Spencer (23’) while she attempted to pull into the parking lot before school in her car. This accident was not only avoidable, but was also caused directly by an illegal and dangerous maneuver.
“I feel like if the rules were like enforced, maybe the accident wouldn’t have happened,” Spencer said.
Campus Monitor and Coach of the Girls Water Polo team Cory Stowell was one of the staff members to help Spencer and the parent resolve the issue. He helped bring the wreck and cars off the main road to help traffic continue on El Camino Avenue as normal.
This is not the first time Stowell has had to help deal with an accident in front of EC.
“There have been about four that I can remember recently that were caused because of the drop off and pick up situation,” Stowell explained.
As a campus monitor, Stowell is normally the first to help in situations like the aforementioned accident. Since Stowell has seen so many of these issues, he believes that these kinds of accidents and traffic jams could be avoided if parents dropped off their students properly.
“The main problem is parents parking on El Camino Avenue in front of the school to pick up their student, and then making a U-turn to pull out,” Stowell said.
Principal Randy Holcomb, who has held this position at EC for five years and knows the issue very well. Holcomb knows that it goes deeper than just picking up and dropping off. Speeding is also a problem.
As a last resort, he has reached out to law enforcement to hopefully not only make the parents who drop off and pick up students incorrectly make better decisions, but also to help with the speeding issue as well.
“I’ve reached out to CHP and the Sheriffs and they said they really can’t help with that,” Holcomb said.
El Camino Avenue and Eastern Avenue are both streets that are often busy with 40 MPH speed limits, meaning people also drive fast on these streets. Parents need to stop parking on the street and making illegal U-turns or scenarios like this will never end.
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