Every once in a while, I am really impressed at the way that the higher-ups deal with issues concerning alcohol.

Even though you probably think everyone is out to get you when you crack open a beer, it really just isn’t true.

Case in point: On the front page of the Daily yesterday, Sgt. Randy Kessel of the Ames Police Department commented on the Iowa Legislature’s possible lowering of the legal blood alcohol limit to 0.08 from 0.10.

“I think the laws are pretty stringent as they stand now,” Kessel said. “I’m not sure if changing the level to 0.08 would get more arrests.”

Jump back and take a big deep breath. What’s that, a police officer actually interested in a law becoming too strict?

A police officer recognizing when legislators are trying to look tough on crime to their constituents without actually knowing anything about what they are legislating?

Kessel is right, of course.

Lowering the number by two hundredths will accomplish nothing. The only purpose of such a move would be purely aesthetic. It surely isn’t based on an attempt to keep citizens safer.

Where’s the documented scientific evidence saying that it’s 0.08, not 0.10, is the level at which an average person’s hand-eye coordination has slipped so much that he or she can no longer drive? There is none. Kessel recognized that there is no valid reason to mess with the OWI laws.

Perhaps this should be shocking, but to me it really isn’t. Believe it or not, the Ames law enforcement community is not out to get you.

In fact, they probably don’t care at all that you’re stumbling down Welch Avenue with a beer in your hand, but you’re making them look pretty bad so you are probably going to get a ticket.

Some people might argue that assertion. They point out that they’ve been ticketed numerous times and maybe even have had their license suspended.

To that, I point out that anyone who gets that many tickets in a college town is either a raving alcoholic or very stupid.

Peace officers in a college town like Ames know what’s going down. The great majority of college students at least do some drinking of alcohol during their stints at their respective institutes of higher learning.

The men and women with badges know it.

They don’t plan to stop it anytime soon.

It would probably take a nuclear winter to keep college students from drinking, and even then there might be that one eighth-year senior in his basement trying to figure out how to make a still.

All they want to do is keep people relatively safe. I say relatively because you’re never going to be safe after drinking a substance that will allow you to say whatever pops into your head to men of large size and girth.

Another case in point is the Midnight Express. Affectionately termed the “Drunk Bus,” this method of public transportation is really an amazing service.

You can call the Drunk Bus, it will come pick you up anywhere in Ames, and subsequently take you anywhere you want to go. If you want to leave one party and want to be taken to another one, the Drunk Bus will do it.

If you’re losing the ability to communicate with your legs, call the Drunk Bus and it will take your sorry ass home.

And the shocking thing about all of this is that the Drunk Bus drivers don’t call any law enforcement officers when they see obviously intoxicated individuals pile on to their bus. They don’t call in your address, any of the addresses for the parties you went to or that stop off at the gyro stand.

They just pretend they’re your friend all night, driving you around where your slowly beating heart desires.

DPS, Ames PD or CyRide could all take a much more interventionist stance about the Drunk Bus. But they don’t, because that would be counter-productive.

The Drunk Bus keeps drunk drivers off the roads and stuffs them all together in a small bus where they’ll have more fun anyway singing dirty limericks and hooting at the opposite sex out of their windows.

To kind of drag this all together, my point is that I think sometimes DPS and Ames PD get a bad rap. I know it’s sometimes tough to love cops, being that their job does often conflict with what people would rather be doing.

However, in this town there’s really no reason not to. Just keep sober enough to walk, take the drunk bus instead of driving and don’t pee on the streets and you’ll be fine.

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David Roepke is a sophomore in journalism and mass communications from Aurora. Are you calling me a cop lover?