A recent traffic accident involving high school students and unsafe driving conditions during the lunchtime period at Moorpark High School incited school trustee Ron LaGuardia to request changes in lunch policies and offerings at a meeting this week.

"We need to see what we can do to make it better. I can't in good conscience do nothing," said LaGuardia.

Students should be encouraged to stay on campus for lunch to prevent accidents and injuries, he said.

Current district policies allow juniors and seniors to leave campus for lunch, as long as they have permission from their parents and are in possession of an off-campus pass.

However, students only have 40 minutes to drive off campus, get food and return for their next class. The short lunch break causes inexperienced drivers to rush in crowded conditions, increasing the likelihood of accidents, said LaGuardia.

LaGuardia, who visited the campus during lunch, recently, said he witnessed cars "roaring" out of the parking lot. He suggested that the school district could make improvements to keep students onsite.

"We could create a structure that they will call their own and provide desirable nutritional option," he said.

Lunch menus offered at school now are better then those served at fast food restaurants, LaGuardia added.

If the above ideas don't help to keep students on campus, school leaders may have to consider other options, including the idea to limit off-campus options for students, said LaGuardia.

"This is a safety issue, and when it comes to safety we don't cave," he said.

Authorities also plan to address the matter, increasing traffic enforcement around the high school, said Moorpark Police Senior Dep. Tom Wooff.

In addition to unsafe driving practices, some students disobey provisional license rules, he said. Wooff referred to an accident that happened about three months ago on Tierra Rejada Road, involving eight students in two cars. The drivers were on provisional licenses so they were not supposed to have passengers, he said.

"We want to deter kids from doing this, so we hope to put together an operation during the first week of March to go out at lunch time around the school and make traffic stops to issue tickets to kids driving passengers with provisional licenses," he said.

Last week's accident on Los Angeles Avenue involved three cars and three people, including two high school students.