Most students at San Luis Obispo High School pull up to school in the usual Honda Odyssey minivan or Toyota pickup truck. However, some students arrive in the brand-new Mercedes, Jeep, or BMW that their parents so graciously gifted them on their sixteenth birthday. When taking into consideration the weekly and sometimes daily car accidents that occur in SLOHS parking lot, we are forced to question the necessity to drive a forty-thousand-dollar car at such an irresponsible and immature age.

“I wish I would have had more experience with driving before I drove a newer car. When I got in my first accident it was really expensive to fix, and I feel like that it could have been avoided if I had had my license longer,” said junior Megan May.

Students are prone to reversing into the back of a classmate’s car in a rush to get off campus, and the need to repair a small dent on the bumper of a Range Rover can end up costing an absurd amount of money. These collisions can be of lesser harm if students simply accept the fact that 17 year olds would be better off driving an inexpensive and used car.

“It’s illogical to give a kid an expensive car when stats show that they will inevitably total it in a month. I’m lucky to have an older brother who passed down the used family car to me, especially after my car was hit a few months ago,” said senior Maya Caminada.

As only teens we must consider our tendency to make mistakes when behind the wheel and should therefore rethink spending our savings on luxury cars or pleading our parents to buy them for us. After experiencing a number of accidents myself, I would recommend you keep an eye out for those dangerous drivers, and be grateful for that 2003 Ford.