The ghosts and goblins, spooks and ghouls will be out onHalloween night. Sacramento State students will be out. So will theSacramento City Police and the Sacramento County Sheriffs.

Halloween can be exciting, erotic, costumed fun. It is a chanceto put inhibitions aside and play your chosen role.

A little advice for Sac State students: Don’t play therole of that idiot drunken driver laying rubber and spewing tiresmoke down the street from the party and into the waiting arms ofthe California Highway Patrol. It is not fun for anyone.

Police don’t relish tossing people into the klink forgoing out to have a good time. They do enjoy taking idiots frombehind the wheel for driving while intoxicated and placing thembehind bars.

They are good at it too.

Police are trained to identify the physical signs ofintoxication. Every car is equipped with a Breathalyzer. If you arestopped after you have been drinking they will know.

Halloween is always a full enforcement weekend. Every availablelaw enforcement officer will be patrolling or manning a DrinkingWhile Intoxicated checkpoint. Even backstreets are unlikely to getyou home safely.

It is not any fun getting tossed in jail with drunks andcriminals who are frightening enough in their everyday lives andnot just in costume. The vomit and blood in the county jail are notfake.

Get a designated driver. Take a cab. Call Safe Rides. Do notplace your life and the lives of your friends in jeopardy. Theother people on the road are alive too and their lives can besnuffed out just as easily as your buddy in the passenger seat.

There is no excuse and there will never be an excuse for takingthe chance of harming someone else with your car if your BloodAlcohol Content is above .08. It is not posted as often as thespeed limit but this law is even more hard and fast than the speedlimit. There is zero tolerance for the drunk and stupid.

Making this mistake will haunt you for years to come.

Spending the night in jail, hiring a lawyer, getting you car outof impound (if there is anything left of it), going to court,paying thousands of dollars in fines, attending DWI traffic schooland &- to top it off &- paying more than double for carinsurance are the fun and excitement you look forward to while youwere drunk or even just tipsy.

If your reflexes are slow, only by a second you might findyourself in worse trouble. If you are in an accident and hurtsomeone, on top of the rest of this is a felony charge prison time,higher fines and higher lawyers fees.

If you kill someone you will be charged with vehicularmanslaughter. If the other penalties didn’t haunt you enoughan actual ghost will turn wherever you are for the rest of yourlife into a real haunted house. That home will be prison for manyof those years.

Make your plans to make it home before you go out. There will beDWI checkpoints. They will catch you if you make a dumb move likedriving drunk.

So make a smart move and carry the number for a friend, a cab orSac State Safe Rides on your Halloween excursion. The number is1(800)GO4-CSUS.

Should Andrew have a drink or relax on his drinking? Sendcomments to

[email protected]