Home is a walk, trip or fare away

    Most people’s weekends start on Friday, but, for many college students, the weekend starts one day earlier – Thursday. This is most likely because many college students try to avoid Friday morning classes like they try to avoid STDs, and in both cases they are sometimes unsuccessful.
    Yet, this does not stop an overwhelming number of bar hoppers from venturing out on Thursday, or any other night of the week, in an attempt to socialize, get drunk, pick-up their late night entertainment, or any other combination of the prior.
    However, the common denominator that they all will face, drunk or sober and regardless of motive, is the question: “How will I get home?”
    It is safe to say that most students get home one of four ways, in no particular order:
    1.    Call a friend
    2.    Call a cab
    3.    Walk
    4.    Drive themselves
    All of these options have pros and cons, but we all know each positive and negative can outweigh the other depending on to whom you talk, on what night and at what time of the night you decide to leave.
    By now, we all know that drunk driving is dangerous; it is dangerous to the driver, passengers, other drivers, pedestrians, and, if caught, the driver’s record and wallet. How do students make it home?
    “I think most people, probably, get a ride from a friend. Two, walk. Three, drive. Four, call a cab. That’s not for me, I walk, but that’s probably what most people do,” said freshman Samantha McKinley.
    In a perfect world we would/could always call a friend. In this world however, not everybody’s friend answers their phone or wants to get up at two something in the morning to pick up a drunk friend. Maybe they are one of the plague stricken ones with that early morning Friday class, or maybe they are busy, or sleeping. Chances are the friend we wish we could call is out on the town with us on their phone attempting to find you both a ride. There goes that option.
    Calling a cab tends to have a high success rate; chances are you will get home. The laws of supply and demand have fixed it so that here in Milledgeville and other college towns there never seems to be a shortage of taxis.
    For students here in Milledgeville, the laws of economics have also fixed the price of the ride so that most responsible students can afford it, especially in comparison to major cities like Atlanta. Yet students still choose other options.         One reason is because many people start the night off trying to be responsible with their money and only take with them an allotted amount of cash they are willing to spend that night, and leave the plastic at home. The problem is that, as the night progresses, the cash gets spent without thought of later transportation. A then penniless, and plastic-less, student is left deciding how they are going to get home. Another reason is the student might feel like they do not need to spend money on a cab.
    “I can drive, I’m not that drunk” or “Forget the cab, I’m walking” are two statements that, in some form or another, can be heard on any given night of the week.
    “I usually walk home, but that’s because I only live a couple blocks away,” said fourth year student Jonathan Hart.
    “Some people drive drunk, but I’m not with that, it’s dangerous. I guess if you don’t have any other option to get home the only thing you can do is take a chance, but that’s something that should be avoided by all means,” he said.
    “I would say driving drunk or after you’ve been drinking is the least used, but it’s tough to say what most people do because it all depends on where you live. If you live near downtown, you’re going to walk back to wherever you live. If you live a couple of miles off campus where walking is not an option then you’re going to call a cab, or drive. I mean it’s the nature of the game, regardless of safety precautions, you got to get home,” said fifth year senior Chris Pinns.
    One would think, the “long walk home”  would be the automatic pick if the friend and the cab are both unavailable. It is not. Especially if the student lives outside the widely accepted walking distance of 1 to 2.5 miles. Some students have been seen walking at 3 a.m. all the way back to Magnolia Park or even playing drunk “Frogger” across the bypass to get back to The Village.
    To most students, especially females, this is just not an option. Some students live within the walking distance radius but are just lazy, or drunk, or both. If their car is in front of the bar at closing time and none of the previous options are available, taking their own car home, for free, becomes the prefered option.
    “These last two years driving has become pretty much out of the question. If you go out at 2:20 at night you’ll see most people walking back home,” said Brian English, the sergeant of the Crime Prevention Department of Public Safety.
    “Our DUI stats have gone down over the last two years. It used to be you could go out and get two or three DUIs a night, but now it’s fringed out. I guess the DUI stat people are choosing to walk now, rather than have to deal with us. But even though the majority of the walkers live close to downtown, the majority of our DUIs also live within a block or two of campus,” said English
    “Sometimes I drive myself back, regardless of whether or not I think I’m drunk. When I have too many people try and convince me not to drive home then I’ll simply walk or run back to my apartment,” said Chris Pinns.
    “Plenty of people drive drunk … until they get caught,” Jonathan Hart said.
    Everyone has their own opinion of which traveling option is chosen most often. This is probably based on what they and the people around them most often do. The common thread in all of this seems to be the fact that the choice made between the four options is a choice made for selfish reasons. The question is always: “How do I get home?” The question should be “How do I get home with the least risk of injury to myself and others?” Let us not be naïve enough to think that people would make smart decisions without the threat of legal repercussions because even that sometimes is not enough persuasion. Whatever the case may be, try and make the right decision for you and the people around you.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 21 2007. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry