Written by Macy Cox
Throughout my Harding experience, every time I drive around the Swaid building or the Reynolds building parking lots, I and many other students persistently check for cars passing through. The problem is the trees are overgrown in the parking lot, blocking the view of the drivers wanting to turn. I cannot list on my hands the number of times I was in close proximity to crashing into someone because I couldn’t see past the trees. So the majority of the time, I pause and wait for 30 seconds to see if anyone is coming, looking both ways about five times for each side. I believe that either the trees should be trimmed back so we can see past them or be completely cut down before someone gets in a wreck.
Another problem is that people driving down the road by the Reynolds should slow down because they fly through there. They act like they are about to be late to curfew or something. It doesn’t matter if they are driving their car or riding their bike, they just assume we can see them when, in fact, we cannot. I’m not sure if we have those trees to make the campus look better, but I can say that it is a problem that students can’t see past without being scared to pull out of the parking lot to get on the road. If it is to make the campus look good, maybe switch them to bushes instead of massive 20-foot tall trees that are not properly trimmed. Trimming the trees would be a short-term solution, and I do believe in the future, we are going to need to remove the trees from the parking lot, because it is becoming a safety hazard for Harding students and faculty that drive through this area on a daily basis. I know many students that have nearly crashed their vehicle as they were exiting as well. I believe Harding should fix this problem as soon as they can. The last thing that Harding needs is to have students get in a wreck because of a failure to trim the trees in their parking lots. I’m sure Harding has a lot of blind spots surrounding the roads and parking lots, butI know this location is one of the worst blind spots on the campus.
