You’ve seen them, most of Fossil Ridge High School has felt them. But why now? Why was it necessary for Fossil to install speed bumps in the east parking lot? Also, why only one of their three parking lots? To get deeper into the reasoning behind the mountains we climb every morning, first you must understand the history of our school.    

For many years. Fossil has had a difficult time managing the overflowing crowd of people pouring in year after year. According to the history of Fossil, the starting student population in 2004 was approximately 400 students. There was no issue with parking whatsoever in the first few years. However, the now twelve-year-old school is over capacity. With a school built to teach only 1,900 students, Fossil now has around 2,100 students enrolled. “With that amount of people parking, there seems to be a tendency to race to grab a spot.” Assistant Principal Mark Berry explained. “We would have cases where students would resort to parking on lady moon drive due to the lack of a parking spot.”

Not only was there a lack of parking spaces for students. It was apparent to the staff members that there were “golden parking spots.” These spots include the spaces just beyond the once standing jersey barriers. Now that the jersey barriers have been lifted and the parking lot refit to practical use (no longer a one way in and one way out situation). There has been a dramatic decrease in speed due to there being two ways to exit.

Photo Credit: http://americanconcrete.com/commercial/barriers/jersey-barriers.htm

The speed bumps in Fossil’s east side parking lot are one of the first in the district. By personally analyzing every high school parking lot in the district, the horrifying truth is that there are no other speed bumps in the district like ours. In fact, there aren’t any speed bumps at Poudre High School or Fort Collins High School. On the brighter side, Rocky has speed bumps. However, Rocky tends to see more traffic in their lot due to Football games and other events. The speed bumps that are installed in their parking lot are wide and “hump” like, in contrast to Fossil’s being narrow and vertically stiff.  

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Fossil is the only school in the district with speed bumps like this. If it was necessary to obtain speed bumps in the first place, why didn’t we obtain the ones seen at Rocky? The executive director of operations Pete Hall was unable to comment.

These speed bumps are not only different from Rocky’s, they are also one inch higher than an average Larimer County speed bump. The maximum height limit for speed bumps in Larimer County is around a vertical rise of three to four inches. Fossil’s height was estimated at 4½ inches.   

Fossil’s east side parking lot is obviously the only lot in Fossil that has speed bumps.The essential thought was that the people speeding last year and the years prior would move and speed in the west lot. However, according to senior Sam Hartman, he has not seen a dramatic increase in any speeding in the lot. “It’s as if it was like last year, I personally haven’t seen any difference or changes in driving behavior this year in our east lot.”

For the people that do drive over the bumps every morning and afternoon they obviously don’t enjoy them. However, through personal experience and others that drive over them, even at a crawl, the top of the bump still scrapes the bottom of any regular sedan. Take for instance senior Jonathan Hagar. Hagar drives a Pontiac. “Every single morning I feel those dreaded bumps. Even at a speed lower than three miles an hour, the bottom of my car feels the inevitable wrath.” If Jonathan could describe the bumps in one word he would say they are “unnecessary.”