After you’re around people for about four years, you start to realize some of their strange habits. Recently, some of my friends have noticed my abnormal behavior of walking down the middle of the street.

I’m not talking about the edge of the sidewalk space. I’m talking full monty, walking on the painted broken lines. It doesn’t matter if it’s 2 a.m. and I’m coming back from Murphy’s, or if it’s 3 a.m. and I’ve just finished an intense study session at the library. If I’m by myself, or even with just one other person, you can bet that at least one car has to swerve around me.

“What’s wrong with you?” many irrate drivers ask. “Isn’t the sidewalk good enough for you?”

Well … no. It’s not — not at night, anyway. I usually inform people that I walk on the road so no one can snatch me from the bushes and sexually assault me.

I get a lot funny looks for that one. But I’m not trying to be glib, or funny. It’s my biggest fear as something that was instilled in me ever since the first time I first heard about a University public sexual assault. Although most assaults are between someone the victim knows, stranger attacks are real. So I walk on the road.

Just last Sunday, students got an email about a girl who was attacked on Green Street. This is not just in my head. It happens God-only-knows how many times over the course of the year.

I walk on the road because we have a broken SafeRides system. A couple of nights ago, my best friend and I helped get a girl home. SafeRides informed us that they would only stop at their boundary at University and State, which was all well and good, except the fact that she lived at least ten minutes away from that point. That’s ten minutes unprotected. And alone.

I ridicule SafeRides often. And I know they can’t be our personal taxi service, but I think there needs to be talk of extending at least one bus to the outskirts of town. Not all students live out there, but enough do.

I walk on the road because there are girls like me who take their friends’ independence as a sign that they are fine walking home on their own. But they’re not always. I have told several of my friends they can walk home alone, but that’s not right. Why can’t I figure out a way to walk with them, maybe halfway, or even stay the night at their place? At the very least, I always, always make sure they text me when they’re home.

Like everyone with a strong support group, my friends are my family. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to them.

I walk on the road because I am too proud to ask someone to walk me home. The number of times I’ve walked home alone in the past four years is staggering. I know countless, wonderful friends who would drop anything to make sure I got home safe — why don’t I lean on them?

Is it because I don’t want to put them in danger, where they too must walk alone to come save me? Is it because I think it’s a bummer that, unfortunately, we all may need someone to walk us home at times? That we all think that this may be the day that someone decides to attack us, so we need to be constantly vigilant?

Maybe I know, subconsciously, that walking in the middle of road may not save me if something were to happen. Because the true solution isn’t a bunch of students walking in the middle of the street in fear of their safety. The solution is that more institutions — Universities, local government and others — to pay more attention to the issue of safety. This shouldn’t be a topic we accept blindly. Sexual assault isn’t something we can get rid of with a snap of a finger, but we shouldn’t throw our hands up and admit defeat, either.

You see, this occurrence of sexual assault isn’t just our university’s problem. It isn’t just Todd Akin’s problem, or a women’s problem, or the problem of someone who happens to walk alone. It’s a problem we all need to address, regardless of sex, political party, or status in the world. Be it focus groups, another University campus committee, a bigger legislative push … whatever may work. We should not be a culture that takes rape or sexual assault in as a negative that just happens. It needs to stop.

I don’t have an easy fix for the solution—I doubt anyone does. Until we conquer this, the best thing to do is to watch out for your friends. And if you need to walk solo, find a solution that isn’t so middle-of-the-road.

Tolu is a senior in Media. She can be reached at [email protected].