After spending six hours in behind-the-wheel lessons and fifty hours driving with a guardian, every teenager must face the inevitable driving test. Once the coveted license has been earned, a teenager has made it. They have the freedom to travel as they please and drive to school on their own.

However, upperclassmen who have not received both a car and license by the beginning of the school year are not able to obtain a parking permit for the whole year. Thus, they are subject to parking tickets and warnings for the remainder of the year for parking illegally.  The same is true for underclassmen.

After all of the waiting and time spent to obtain this plastic card of freedom, many students are met with more time waiting for a school parking permit. And while waiting to receive the coveted parking sticker, money is spent on parking fines just to be able to park at school.

In the beginning of the year, students can apply for a permit. Students who carpool have priority, then seniors, and then juniors. If a student is not able to submit their application on time, they are placed on a waiting list. However, it is uncommon that a student receives a permit after being placed on the waiting list.

Though students have options to get to school without driving themselves, for some it is a large hassle to do anything else.

I live in Mill Valley, and though I am able to attend Redwood with little hassle, the school has no public transportation setup that comes or leaves Mill Valley.

Though carpooling is an option, only a handful of students live close to me, so it is clear that the best choice is to drive myself. However, because I did not get my license by the beginning of the year, I can’t easily drive myself to school and park legally on campus.

Students who are left in this bureaucratic limbo often choose to park illegally on campus throughout the year for convenience. Most continue to park in the school’s lots and risk the tickets they may get doing so.

Though parking legally nearby Redwood is an option, students will be far from their car and may be late to their classes with not enough time to get there and back so they can retrieve their things. Students drive to school because it gives them a place to keep their things and allows them to come and go as they please. But if it takes five minutes to walk to one’s car, then what is the point?

Parking should be first come first serve for all students throughout the entire year. We have permits so that we are able to control the amount of cars in our lots, yet the system does a poor job of doing so. It is not efficient in keeping the numbers of cars down because students still park without permits.

The current permit system discriminates against students who can legally drive and does not regulate the overcrowding situation well enough to be kept in place. Therefore, the administration should get rid of permits entirely and let the parking lot be first come, first serve every day.

Students should be able to park in our lots with no permit and if the lots get too crowded, the affected students will have to find their own alternatives.

As of now, cars without permits continue to park in the lots, even with the knowledge of possible consequences from doing so.  If permits stopped being issued and everyone could park as they please, then the numbers of cars parking on campus would not increase.

Instead, those who park in the lot would continue to do so but would not suffer the consequences.  That way, students would no longer be  randomly targeted with $40 tickets and would be able to park as they please.