It’s that time of year again. pub Crawl is hitting Brookings and you can tell. People are excited and are already discussing their plans to “go hard,” according to someone I overheard saying the other day. 

Having some fun in downtown Brookings is fine, but I think pub crawl creates a context for bad decisions to be made that can affect you, people you know and people you may not know. According to collegedrinkingprevention.gov, 1,825 people from the ages of 18 to 24 are killed every year in car accidents and 3.36 million drive under the influence of alcohol. 

Now please don’t throw this paper down as if I’m acting like your parents telling you what to do. You’re allowed to do and think what you wish. But what I’d like to pose to you is that even though I may not know who you are, I don’t want you to hurt yourself or anyone else, and I figured this is a way that I can express it. 

Saturday there will be masses of people in green flooding the streets of downtown Brookings wanting to have fun and they will have fun I’m sure, but there is a variable that can either make it a night you’ll never forget, or a night you’ll regret. 

Please be aware of the options you have at your disposal to get yourself home safe. Safe Ride Home provides transportation to and from various points in town that will get you where you need to go when you’re done having fun downtown, there are various taxi services offered to people as well or make sure you have a designated driver.  So as your nights end, please remember to utilize these resources, they are around for a reason. 

You have every reason to want to unwind and have some fun with your friends this weekend, we all do it; but you have no reason to get behind a wheel and drive. You might hurt someone and there are a lot of consequences to doing it. 

I really want you to have fun, I really do, but I also want you to make good decisions to avoid hurting yourself or others. 

Have a safe pub crawl, friends. 

 

John Schmidt is majoring in journalism. He can be reached at [email protected]