Personal safety is not something college students think about very often. Most of us still have an “I’m invincible” attitude leftover from adolescence.
But the fact that most college students are still free of arthritis and high blood pressure does not make us immune to other health hazards. In fact, it seems as though the good physical health most people 18 to 24 years old enjoy puts them at higher risk for other types of injuries.
Last week, a U student was hit by a car while biking. Though the student was able to walk away from the accident with minimal injuries, this illustrates the indifferent attitude most college students take toward safety regulations.
There is an official maximum speed for skateboarders and bikers on campus sidewalks-it’s 10 miles per hour. Yet how many of us have been involved in a near miss with someone obviously going much faster than that?
Additionally, how many accidents with TRAX could be avoided if students just paid more attention to traffic laws? How many students have sped over the TRAX lines just because they didn’t want to wait a few seconds? How many people have driven the wrong way up the one-way street by the Union just because they’re too lazy to make the loop? And how many of us don’t stop for pedestrians crossing the street?
Eventually, these little shortcuts are going to result in more serious injuries than a few bumps and bruises.
The question becomes, do we start acting like the responsible adults we claim we are-or do we wait for some university official to start policing us more?
If we don’t want more of campus life to be regulated, we need to start exercising more self-restraint.
It’s a paradox of individual liberty-we want to maintain as many personal freedoms as possible, but we also need to ensure the safety of students on campus. The key to maintaining this balance is not to create more rules and regulations, but to encourage students to police themselves.
So if we don’t want to let the people at Commuter Services use radar guns on every skateboarder and biker on campus, we have got to start being more personally responsible.
The fact is, campus is not the place to be speeding along on a scooter, anyway-so think of the safety of your fellow students and save the outdoor recreation for weekends.