Safe sex, drunk driving and the sugar content of popular beverages were just a few of the topics that were discussed on Monday as part of the “Safe Spring Break” event hosted by the Student Health Center on Monday. The turnout was dismal and disappointing, and the volunteers deserved more recognition for their hard work.

The Union is a notoriously busy building on campus but the turnout for the day’s events was uninspiring at best. It lasted from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. but tables containing information were being broken down by 1:30. The students working the booths may not have said so, but there was palpable disappointment inside the room.

The main attraction of the day, a DUI simulator, was housed inside the University Ballroom. It’s an automobile with a virtual reality headset, or “beer goggles” as I call them, connected to it. The driver would operate the pedals and steering wheel as normal and the headset required the driver to look around as if they were actually operating the vehicle.

Josiah Hull would operate a laptop that would adjust the simulator based on the blood alcohol level. His main point to participants was, “If you have money to go to the bar you have money to spend on a cab.” The simulation begins with a test run while the participant is categorized as “sober.” I smashed into a car in front of me while doing 80, and it was all downhill from there. The simulation then put me at .08, the legal limit, and I started swerving and blew through a few red lights. At .16 I clipped a pedestrian, but he was jaywalking, so I didn’t feel guilty. Then they upped the blood alcohol level to .50, at which point I would be urinating Everclear. I couldn’t keep the car on the road and I was passing semis on the right side.

I couldn’t keep a straight face throughout the simulation, but that’s the idea; It was supposed to be a fun event for students. In a simulation no one cares if you mow down pedestrians or t-bone a minivan packed with kids. Reality is not so forgiving. To drive that point home, a television next to the simulator was playing the HBO show “Smashed” which graphically depicts the aftermath of drunk driving. One scene showed a patient getting fluid drained from his brain. After seeing that clip, I decided to save the free pizza coupon I got for participating until later.

Whether it’s while you’re bar-hopping, making a beer run or taking a trip to Jack in the Box at 3 a.m., drunk driving happens more often than most of us care to admit. Some think that drinking and driving actually helps their concentration, others just think that they are not going to get pulled over. Then when it happens, they get enraged and act like some mistake has been made.

Health educator Cyndra Krogen said that she would have liked to see a larger turnout, but she gave several possibilities for why so few students stopped by. “It is a beautiful day, students may not have even come to campus today.” Krogen added that hosting the event on St. Patrick’s Day, a day widely-recognized as a holiday for drinking and debauchery, was no coincidence. “We want to warn students about the dangers of drinking and driving. We know people are going to drink, we just want them to be responsible.” Krogen added that the event has been hosted in the Library quad in past years, but the addition of the DUI simulator encouraged them to move indoors. She added that she would have liked to place an advertisement in the Hornet, but it was too expensive.

The Hornet dropped the ball by not writing a preview of the event for the last issue. However, we will cover the upcoming “Quit and Win” health expo that will take place in April.

Tom Shepard said about the lack of student involvement at the event, “As long as we convince one person to be safe, we did our job.” He is right and has a better outlook on life than I do, but who doesn’t? Shepard and the other student volunteers poured countless hours of their time into making this free event possible, and few seemed to care. This event wasn’t a scare tactic, guilt trip or publicity stunt. It was an effort by concerned students to make sure all Sac State students came back safely from Spring Break.

Jordan Guinn can be reached at [email protected].