If you make the treacherous commute to Academic Magnet in the morning, then you more than likely have made a few detours and shortcuts through the neighborhood to avoid some traffic. With the two schools sharing a campus, and student drivers, parents, teachers, and buses that flood into Bonds-Wilson every morning, it is a recipe for a traffic nightmare. Consequently, our enterprising students have discovered the shortcuts through the neighborhood adjacent to the school in order to save some extra time in the morning. 

The issue

Assuming you drive through the neighborhood regularly, you have definitely noticed that the residents are less than excited about the teenage drivers who go barreling down their street daily. There have been protests in the form of yelling and hand gestures directed toward the AMHS and SOA students who are just trying to get to school a little quicker. Additionally, some neighbors decided to make ridiculously slow loops in the morning throughout the neighborhood to slow down the students and hinder them from taking the neighborhood route. While it is bothersome, the neighbors driving down the roads going a fun 8 mph is perfectly legal; however, it is  highly concerning that the neighbors have nothing else going on in their lives. What is NOT legal is the neighbors actually setting up their own cones (which they likely went and purchased at Home Depot) in order to block school traffic. Not only have these Oak Terrace residents put a shocking amount of time and effort into an issue regarding high school students, but they have also blatantly broken the law. Maybe the neighbors need to spend less time scheming against children and stop to think that maybe they should not have purchased a house directly next to a school if they were going to be perturbed by the presence of the students. 

“Coming to the Nuisance”

Coming to the nuisance is “a legal doctrine that prevents a party from claiming nuisance if said nuisance was present, and the party knew of that nuisance before they acquired the property subject to the nuisance”. This means that the neighbors have zero legal grounds to complain about the “nuisance” otherwise known as children because the majority of the neighborhood residents moved there AFTER the school was built and the realtors were obligated to tell them they would be near a school. The Bonds Wilson campus and the Oak Terrace neighborhood were built during the same time so even the oldest residents were aware they would be living by a school. In the words of our Student Resources Officer Watson, “The law is on our side.” Despite being reminded of the Coming to the Nuisance Doctrine at copious city council meetings, our loving neighbors still struggle to wrap their minds around the concept and clearly have never taken AP Gov. 

Taking Action 

Now armed with photo evidence of the neighbors blocking a public street without a permit and thus breaking the law, the North Charleston Police Department will hopefully be able to shut down the neighbors once and for all. The issue is still very much ongoing and updates occur daily. 

Raptor Experiences

“A woman in a navy car yelled at us after we parked in the neighborhood last year then drove off. Told us it was a private area and we couldn’t park there. Another guy once told me he was going to call the cops because I was parking in front of his house.” Ford Martin

“One time I was about to be late to school so I decided to go through the neighborhood to avoid getting another tardy in Ms. Smith’s class. As I was driving through, one of the neighbors pulled out in front of me and started driving like 5mph. Because the street was so narrow, no one was able to go around them causing us all to be late. Once I got to my turn I looked over and saw the neighbor laughing at us and all the traffic they made.” Betsy Bailey

“Don’t live near a school if you don’t like school traffic. Also why do they keep walking into the middle of the road?” Henry Hughes

“Sophomore year (last year) I was waiting in the neighborhood immediately after school to pick up my friend for lacrosse practice. A lady storms up to my car and bangs on the window a ton, and when I put it down she yells at me to move my car because I’m not allowed to be in the neighborhood. I try to. be polite and tell her ill leave soon but she says I have to leave now or she would call the cops.” Nate Markin

“I was passing through the neighborhood as I usually do and there was a lady standing outside her house in her robe with a coffee mug in hand. She must have been extremely dedicated to her cause because it couldn’t have been more than 45 degrees outside. My extremely loud car (very quiet toyota corolla) must have angered her because she ran up to my window with her phone and demanded I roll my window down. I rolled it down and she made it very clear that she was recording me, had written my license plate down, and she would be reporting me to the police. She also informed me that our principal had informed us that we couldn’t drive past her house (he had not) and that I was directly disobeying his orders (I was not). I tried to drive away but she pretty much chased me down the road yelling and recording my license plate.” Destiny Craft

 My car got keyed four times when I parked in the neighborhood.” Alaina Jarrett

Officer Watson 

Officer Watson recommends that students take a different shortcut outlined below. He says that even though driving past the houses of the protestors is perfectly legal, he thinks that they are trying to start stuff, and making them madder could lead to raptors getting dragged into trouble. Officer Watson wants to keep all the raptors safe and out of the fray of conflict by avoiding these aggressors altogether. I think this is a very smart recommendation so we can still avoid the traffic without being caught up in the delirium of the protesters.

The March 29th Incident

On the morning of March 29th, the neighbors had  police stationed near one of the stop signs, patiently waiting for an unsuspecting student to roll over the white line. A car just in front of Avery Voelkel “came to a rolling stop and was pulled over. The neighbors erupted into cheers of excitement.” I find it extremely sad that a child being pulled over for an insufficient stop brings joy to these pitiful people. The neighbors bringing in a cop to try and catch students shows how committed they are to putting a stop to the haunting nightmare that is children driving past their houses in the morning.