Police officers visit campus often during the day and evening, but if you’re not doing anything illegal or wrong, they’re usually friendly. During the day, the police pull over people driving too fast around the Drillfield, direct jaywalkers to crosswalks, and catch bicyclists going the wrong way on the roads. In the evenings, the police make their way downtown either on bikes, on foot, or in patrol cars in order to make sure students aren’t drunk in public or driving under the influence. A DUI is a serious offence, and the police set up DUI checkpoints quite often.
The police are sometimes called when parties get too loud off campus. Most of the time, officers issue warnings to loud partiers, tell them to turn their music down, and send their partying friends home. The police in Blacksburg realize that this is a college town, but they don’t have much patience for drunken students. On-campus drinking is regulated by RAs in the dorms, and they watch for underage drinking. The campus isn’t a dry campus, so if students are caught drinking, usually the consequences are softer for the first offense and get stricter if you’re caught again. The campus and the police aren’t too strict, and most of the time they just leave Tech students feeling safe. Most rules and laws that get enforced have to do with alcohol and traffic violations. Less serious things, like having a guy or a girl over too late in you dorm, isn’t going to get you into very much trouble.