By Massiel Ladron DeGuevara
Staff Writer
The Student Government Association plans to have a pilot program for Safe Rides up and running by the end of this semester.
Safe Rides is a program that, if put into effect, will offer taxi rides to students from a bar or party to their residency.
The program is not designed, however, to take students to a party or bar or to take them to another location other than their residency once they have been picked up.
Every Pepperdine student will have access to the Safe Rides program once it has been implemented.
Three stickers bearing the Safe Rides logo will be distributed by the SGA office to students to be placed on student identification cards once the program has been established.
One sticker will be removed by the driver after each use of the service upon arrival.
Students will have to sign for a bill, which will be paid by Pepperdine, in order to confirm that they utilized the service.
A 1-800 number of participating taxi companies will be publicized by the SGA office.
United Independent, which is based out of Santa Monica, and Malibu Taxi are the two companies working with Pepperdine.
If there is a great demand for the program, other companies will be solicited.
The purpose of the pilot program is to see how much the program will cost, what the frequency of use would be, and to get a general idea as to how students will be utilizing the distances that the program will offer.
SGA president Andrea Krug is looking at least a 15-mile radius for the program.
“At this time we have discussed Santa Monica as being the farthest point we would pick students up from, but it would be a limited radius,” Krug said. “Say Santa Monica is 15 miles away, then we would also go 15 miles through the canyon and into Calabasas and other areas.”
A lot will depend on cost and feasibility, Krug said.
Funding for Safe Rides will consist mainly from fundraisers and the special projects fund, which is set aside to fund programs that are outside the normal club and organization fund.
In the future, however, it may need to be student-funded. If after conducting the pilot program, Safe Rides proves to be efficient then the SGA office will be solicitating for special grants from various companies.
“We are going to be applying for grants from various alcohol manufacturers and distributors that have safe driver programs,” SGA treasurer Ben Veenendal said.“We have contacted so far Budweiser and Coors and are hoping to get others.”
A similar program to the Safe Rides was in place on Pepperdine’s campus five years ago called the Designated Driver program, which was student-run and organized.
The way that program was run was students would call into the SGA office where there would be an operator on duty and tell them where they were located and the SGA office would then dispatch a student driver to pick them up.
“I like the idea of Safe Rides better,” senior Cathryn McFearin said.“Anything that’s dependable and will save a person from a possible tragedy is well worth it.
February 07, 2002