On the morning of Monday, Oct. 18, senior Jake Janosky arrived at school in his blue Jeep and parked on the railroad-track-side of Carolan Avenue. Janosky said that like many students on Monday mornings, he was groggy and running late; he didn’t bother to check the quality of his parking job.

Janosky’s parking wasn’t egregiously poor; he claimed he was almost perfectly within the 18 inches that California state law allows vehicles to be from the curb.

“Maybe even 18.3-ish,” Janosky said.

He wasn’t met with a ticket on his dashboard after school, affirming his parking was likely legal. But what he couldn’t avoid were the all-seeing eyes of @bhs.bad_parking, an Instagram account dedicated to exposing substandard parking on and around Burlingame’s campus. 

The account, which was created anonymously in early October and has amassed over 470 followers as of Dec. 16, exhibits all kinds of inadequate and illegal parking jobs for its followers to laugh at in good fun.

“Five of my friends DM’d me throughout the day… I was OK with [being posted],” Janosky said. “It made me more popular.”

The account relies mainly on user submissions, meaning nobody can confidently say they are safe from its feed. Student cars, maintenance trucks and even staff vehicles have appeared on the account. 

Students brazenly ignoring no-parking zones is a persisting trend on campus. Of the 50 parking jobs posted by the account as of Dec. 16, 13 have been vehicles parked in no-parking zones. 

Senior Sohail Erekat was posted for parking in one of these zones. He pointed out that a main reason so many students park in these zones is a lack of parking availability elsewhere on campus. The legality of parking becomes less and less of a priority for students rushing to get to class, especially when, according to Erekat, no-parking zones are rarely enforced.

“I’m not wasting my time,” Erekat said. “I’m parking wherever I find a spot.”

The influence of the account has transcended the Burlingame community. Since it was started, San Mateo High School, Hillsdale High School, Serra High School, Sequoia High School and Carlmont High School have all had bad parking Instagram accounts created as well.

Last week, student parking became more limited when admin opted to hold a lottery among seniors for access to designated student spots. But as long as people continue to drive to school, the account will have no shortage of material to work with.

“Everyone knows somebody who is really bad at parking or [are] bad at it themselves, so it’s fun to see other people’s outrageously bad jobs,” junior Alex Gratch said.