DPS student law enforcers need respect

alk your bike, please!" Many of us are familiar with this phrase as the motto of the student DPS officers. Spoken repeatedly over a four-hour span each afternoon, these words ring quite cacophonously in the ear of the man or woman who just happens to ride their bike through the middle of campus between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

"Oh darn, another traffic ticket from DPS." Of course, this expression has various alternate phrasings to make the meaning more explicit and perhaps derogatory. Most students do not anticipate arriving at their car in any of the campus parking structures to find a piece of paper tucked neatly under the driver-side windshield wiper. They probably, dare I say, curse the student DPS workers and their overzealous nature of delivering tickets to poor college students.

The yellow jackets and the walkie-talkies seem to form a bond among the students who applied for and earned a job with the Depart-ment of Public Safety. They are at once recognizable and reviled by many a student on our campus. They are here to enforce the laws and are doing their job, but to those on the receiving end of the metered ruler, the officer is infringing on their lives. Thus, the characteristic response to this intrusion of the yellow-jacket people is to sneer, to mumble slanderous comments under their breath and, if they truly feel hurt, even make known to the public their disgruntled feelings.

Unfortunately, because of the bitterness of a few rule-breakers, the hard-working students who need the job for financial aid are forced to develop thick skin. But they are on the right side of things, and should know that as long as they are holding up the law and being as polite and courteous as possible, they are doing their job admirably and responsibly. It is the duty of the person being penalized to act accordingly by responding just as courteously and doing as they are told.

In regard to the bicycle-riding issue, we need to remember there is a rule in place: No one is allowed to ride a moving object through Hahn Plaza between 10 and 2. That is a simple truth we should all become accustomed to, and we should know by now to get off our bikes, scooters, skateboards or whatever else might help our campus treks go faster. It makes sense to follow it. It is not a harsh infringement on our lives. Ditto the parking-ticket issue.

Which brings us back to the issue of the student officers themselves. They are students too and are, after all, doing their job. They can seem annoying by asking us to do something we don't want to do, but it is best to refrain from treating them badly. When you hear a call across Trous-dale to get off your bike, or see a ticket on your windshield, don't respond with misguided anger. Instead, treat the officers as fellow students, and treat them well.

Barbra Bowman is a senior majoring in urban planning and development.

Copyright 1999 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 136, No. 35 (Tuesday, March 9, 1999), on page 4.