Beginning of a New Semester

September 2nd, 2008 marked the day of a brand new school year. The new semester bring new textbooks, professors, and classes. But, it also brings new scrapes and dings on cars, parking tickets, and dangerous driving.

This fall semester on the California State University Sacramento campus there is an increase of in coming students. For every new student there is in turn a new vehicle. Another vehicle to dodge while crossing parking lots, another vehicle to roll through a stop sign, and another vehicle to compete against for the already disappearing parking spots. Here on campus there are numerous traffic violations every semester and possibly more traffic accidents.

Standing at a corner across from a stop sign in the North side of campus at 7:10am on Tuesday, Sept. 9th, 2008 most vehicles failed to come to a complete stop. Many drivers, who are students and staff alike, continuously rolled through the stop sign, apparently a common practice on campus. After five minutes of observation, almost every eighth vehicle managed to stop for approximately a full 2 seconds. Stopping enough to be considered a legal stop. Others simply approached the stopping line and slowed enough to roll over the line and then accelerated quickly away from the sign as if to make up for the precious second wasted for slowing.

Here is 30 seconds of the event from this morning.