It won’t ever make sense why high school starts the earliest out of all the other grade levels. Let’s face it, teenagers need more sleep. This, plus motor vehicles, doesn’t seem to fit together. Why should the age group that requires at least 9 hours of sleep per night be forced to wake up extraordinarily early just to sit behind a steering wheel that may cause them unavoidable harm?

Just to state the obvious, school needs to start later for the wellbeing of EVERYONE on the roads, not just teenagers’ sanity. Imagine all the avoidable fender benders after school or potential head on collisions in the Lake Mary High School parking lot. Orange County has been trying to push the starting times of their high schools to around 8:15. It’s evident us teenagers need more sleep and the best alternative is to push school’s start time. One step at a time, Seminole County.

This fatigue doesn’t end at the ringing of the first period bell, after everyone presumably has survived the journey to Lake Mary High School. After 7 periods of taking notes and tests, students go straight to work, practice, or tutoring, extending their days even further. It’s no wonder why the school’s parking lot is a nightmare on most occasions. Students are so fatigued that they hardly follow simple traffic rules and etiquette by cutting people off in the carpool line or coming inches from hitting a fellow classmate with the hood of their vehicle. “With school starting so early and most of us students going to bed so late from jobs or homework, we’re all physically and mentally exhausted. Without enough sleep, teenagers can barely function properly let alone drive a car safely. By the afternoon we’re more than dazed,” said junior Aubrey Holt.

Some students’ alarms ring at brutal hours of the morning. Brianna Case, junior, said, “I wake up at 5:25 and it takes me about an hour and 20 minutes to get ready. By the time I leave my house, it’s pretty dark and my coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. In all reality, it doesn’t even help me stay awake until around 2nd period. It’s honestly really hard to stay focused on driving when it’s still dark out.” Even though she spends time to get ready and prepare herself for the long day ahead of her, with soccer practice in the afternoon as well, nothing can combat the fatigue. The day we follow Orange County’s initiative is the day we help preventing careless crashes.