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February 17, 2006
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Safe Rides
Over the last several years the Association of Student Representatives has
attempted to bring a safe-ride program to campus. Their reasons are noble and
supported by the administration. No one wants to see injuries or deaths because
intoxicated students are driving between off campus parties and the residence
halls.
One program that students proposed emulated the one at Texas A&M. That campus environment is drastically different than Trinity’s. They have a larger population to run a successful volunteer program, and they are harder to sue because they are a state agency. Our students have yet to identify a program model from any campus similar to ours that will meet their goals.
Ultimately, the proposed A&M-like program failed because the insurance was exorbitant, and the moral and legal liability issues of a student-run program were too much to overcome. This year’s ASR has taken other stabs at the program through area cab companies and a national start-up company that issues a debit card exclusive to specific taxi services. (This potential program still has a faint pulse and depends on the viability of the company rather than the interest from Trinity.)
The University would be open to the right program. What some students really want, though, is for the University to provide and operate a vehicle that will pick up intoxicated students from parties around town. Unfortunately, there are many cost-related, legal, and logistical issues associated with this idea.
There are philosophical issues as well. Is it the University’s role to shuttle intoxicated underage students to parties and back? In this damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t era of litigation, a family sued a Wisconsin college because the presence of a “drunk bus” contributed to a drinking environment in which their son died from an accidental drowning while intoxicated.
Understand, the University acknowledges that students will drink off campus. While the University enforces the alcohol policy on campus (which is the only way to effectively manage any policy) it doesn’t force students to drink off campus as is often charged. Indeed, our students have free will, and that includes their ability to make personal choices related to alcohol.
Claims that the University doesn’t care about this issue and will one day be responsible for drunk driving deaths are brutally unfair. I can’t fathom that students care any more about the drinking and driving issues they face than the faculty and staff do. Many of us are parents, and all of us dedicate our lives, with great care, to the development of our bright and dynamic student population, not to its demise.
In the true spirit of readying students to become productive young adults, the University encourages students to take responsibility for their own actions. If they don’t do it already, and some do, students can begin their own inexpensive safe-ride program starting tonight. They can choose designated drivers, call cabs, stop friends from driving drunk, and resist the urge to turn to the least-drunk-friend to be the driver. Hosts should have an iron-clad driving plan in place and, to ensure the safety of guests, should remain completely sober.
Students should spend more time on these things than on a structured safe-ride program that will probably never work. And they should do it as if their lives depend on it. They do.
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