I hope all you of-age folk are comfortable riding a skateboard home after the bars. Or, perhaps you’ve found a sturdy, sober friend to give you a piggyback ride.

Either way, overnight parking is scarce around DeKalb’s watering holes. It seems that while advocating that students not drive home after a night of drinking, DeKalb is lacking as far as providing the resources to make those safe choices.

Sure, Molly’s has a drunk bus, if that’s where you’re headed. Or, if you don’t mind waiting up to two hours on a weekend night for the Late Night Ride, that’s another option.

More certainly, however, is the fact that, even if combined, these services can’t promise a ride to serve all bar-going students after hours. Students can wait until the buses get less crowded, but with winter’s arrival, some are sure to become impatient.

Sarah Costa, a senior speech language pathology major, agrees.

“There should be more buses, and less driving [to bars],” she said. “There’s too much driving to begin with.” As a remedy for bars being too spread out, she said, “Or, there should just be more bars.”

Of course, everyone should have a designated driver in mind if they want to handle how to get to and from the bars. The number of DUIs in DeKalb every year shows that everyone, without exception, follows this good rule of thumb.

Oops, sorry. That statistic was in my imagination.

While we promptly set aside all lessons learned in D.A.R.E., we face the reality that drunk driving occurs. Late-night bus services are available, but that’s not enough.

People who decide to drive to the bars fear being slapped with an overnight parking ticket should they choose to leave their cars and take a safer ride home. Let’s face it: College students are poor, and nobody wants to face the hefty towing charge.

Sure, on weekends, there are more parking options in the lots of nearby businesses, but those options don’t exist during the week.

Senior psychology major Clare Blumenstein frequents Molly’s. Even though she lives nearby, Blumenstein says parking options offered by the bar are scarce.

“The first two rows, you can’t park there,” she said. “The lot is always jam-packed. You’re lucky if you can get a spot.”

While we go blue in the face preaching that we shouldn’t drive drunk, it’s evident that safe behavior becomes more difficult and less likely when there aren’t the resources to support good choices.

We could thank surrounding businesses for allowing overflow parking at night, but this doesn’t quelch the widespread fear of towing. I could drive, right? Look! I can say my ABC’s...Wait, does something come after ‘T?’

Hey DeKalb, how about giving us a public parking lot in the corridor west of Annie Glidden off Lincoln Highway? It’s certainly not booming with new businesses. Rather than try to scalpel off that less-than-swell property, why not use it to show us we have the tools to be safe?

“You’ll always have [idiots] no matter what, but the easier you make doing the right thing, the better,” senior German major Taylor Reed said.

Reed said the prospect of a public lot near popular bars could help deter people from driving drunk.

“There’d be lots of opportunities for abuse, though,” he said.

How about a small lot near the 7-Eleven for north-end campus bars? Maybe you could make the Campus Cinemas parking lot public after a certain time for Reilly’s customers. Even if the lot is small, think of the margin by which you’re minimizing drunk-driving.

It just may be big enough to save a life.

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