With the common drinking culture surrounding campuses, some universities have created “safe ride” programs or “drunk buses” for students to use for getting home safely.
Longwood has not created a specific program for this purpose and according to Lieutenant John Johnson of the Longwood Police Department, the university probably won’t consider it.
“It’s a huge liability and it’s a huge responsibility to take on that, and 98 percent of the people that they would be providing their service for would be underage. You just can’t take that lightly. You cannot do that. I don’t think the university would do that anyway,” said Lieutenant Johnson.
According to Sasha Johnson, the Education and Prevention Coordinator for the Office of Student Conduct and Integrity and Chair of the ATOD (Alcohol, Drugs, and Other Drugs) team, a “safe ride” program had been considered before a few years ago, but didn’t make it through due to funding and driver issues.
“I think it’s something we should consider. We have considered it before. It would be a student-led initiative. That’s what I can see, I don’t see the university hiring a driver all night to take students around….the insurance on that would be pretty expensive, but if the students want to do it, the students can do it. We ran into the issue of who would drive. Are we going to have enough volunteers? Who is going to staff that? Who is going to make sure it exists? All of the details that go along with having a ‘drunk bus’ or safe transportation program,” said Johnson.
According to Johnson, there is about 1,800 alcohol-related deaths annually among college students. Although Johnson believes that a “safe ride” program should be considered for the university, she said the issue would run into a difficult funding situation.
“We don’t have it in the budget to supply that service...we can look into things like parent council grants. There might be a certain donor, someone who may want to donate to that particular cause. Because I would hate for students to go through the process of starting that type of program, and it last one year.”
As far as other options, intoxicated students are unable to use the Student Safety Organization walkers due to their policy of not walking intoxicated students home. This leaves them with the option of Longwood Police, which most students would not venture to look for help from, nor would the police want to turn into a transportation system.
“It’s our job to make sure these kids are safe. It’s not our job to shuttle them around because they want to go to the next party and drink some more. We will not do that,” said Lieutenant Johnson.
As far as walking around at night, Lieutenant Johnson advises students to “...stay in well-lit areas....walk in pairs, walk in groups, always have someone there with you. Think about where you’re walking and what you’re doing while you’re walking.”
For now, a safe ride program will remain nonexistent until any further initiatives are taken. It would ultimately be up to students to pull together the program and funding to make the program successful.
