Parking garage pinball
Written by Christopher Guinn, Jan 31, 2012, 0 Comments
A driver cut a blind turn too closely and clipped the car parked on the other side, the second such accident within two weeks, in the USFSP parking garage on Jan. 24.
The driver left no note, did not contact University Police and could be charged with leaving the scene of an accident, a misdemeanor offense. The police are reviewing surveillance footage to determine the perpetrator of the hit-and-run collision.
Lyndsey Collins discovered the crunched front-end of her silver Chevy Cavalier after rushing from her Arabic language lab on Jan. 24.
“I was cutting time close, anyway,” Collins said. “I was supposed to meet my sister somewhere at six and the class is over at six.”
When she saw the front bumper of her silver Chevy Cavalier, she thought, “Oh, looks like I’m not making it.”
The collision was almost identical to one two weeks earlier when a red Honda parked back-in at an end space took a similar hit.
“I’m annoyed because people always drive really poorly in that garage,” Collins said. “It’s obviously not a one-time thing; it’s pretty endemic.”
So far, this has been an active semester for accidents in the garage. There have been four incidents in the past three weeks, said Lt. Reggie Oliver of the police department.
“This is unusual for us this time of year,” Oliver said. Usually it takes about three months to rack up that many wrecks.
These kinds of collisions are usually simple to investigate, Oliver said, because the parking garage has about 40 surveillance cameras installed.
The camerashave also helped catch other kinds of offenders, Oliver said. In the past, some students have damaged their cars outside of school, parked in the garage and then feigned a hit-and-run to avoid the wrath of their parents.
When a collision is reported, the police attempt to contact the owners of the cars to avoid angry phone calls from parents who find out about accidents long after the fact.
The design of the parking garage is partly to blame, Oliver said. With two lanes of traffic and mostly blind turns, drivers have to be extra cautious. He recommends that drivers turn right, rather than left, when moving through the garage.
But this advice would not have helped Collins or the person who hit her car—the second level of the parking garage doesn’t go around both ways.
Most collisions occur at the end spaces, Oliver said, so he recommends that drivers avoid using them. Those spots are also reserved information or file a report with the police. Collins hopes students will start exercising more caution in the garage. “College students are already more likely to run into each other,” she said.
Demand for parking at USFSP is lower than was expected when the 1,167 space parking structure was completed in 2006 at a cost of $2.3 million. Current parking accommodations are considered adequate for the next five years, according to the USFSP Master Plan.
Phase two construction on the parking garage, which would add 340 spaces by extending the structure out toward Sixth Avenue South, has been put on hold until additional need arises.
Email: news@crowsneststpete.com
Photos by Christopher Guinn
