By JJ Bowman
Associate Editor
Seniors who have spent all four of their undergrad years at Pepperdine have already donated nearly $300 toward SGA. Although some have certainly made the most of the student dues they’re forced to tack onto tuition costs, most have not. Most students miss out on free T-shirt Day, free Orange Mocha Frappuccino Day and hurry-while-supplies-last Spring Fling tickets.
Nevertheless, SGA can provide one service that makes the hundreds of dollars in dues worth every cent — a safe ride home. But first, they have to give up the program and hand it over to someone else.
What we now know as “Safe Rides” took the scenic route from clever theory to functionality.
Six years ago, SGA launched the Designated Driver program. Students would call the SGA office and an operator would take their address and send out a student driver to bring them home.
After that program folded, former SGA President Andrea Krug unveiled “Safe Rides” in February 2002. The original version of this service called for placing three Safe Rides stickers on each student’s ID card. Students would then show the card and have a sticker removed once the taxi picked them up. Although they would not be charged, students would have to sign a bill to verify they used the service.
Safe Rides never picked anyone up, however, until Spring 2003. Krug’s successor and last year’s president, Ben Elliott, announced what he hoped would become the Windows 95 of designated-driver programs, a functional program available to anyone within 35 miles of campus who wanted to go home.
This Safe Rides program requires students to pay anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the cab fare, depending on the distance. The service stalled immediately as one student who tried to use the service found out the participating cab company, United Independent Taxi, missed one crucial component — notifying dispatchers. Soon more complaints trickled in and utilizing Safe Rides seemed as viable an option as traveling by hang glider.
Current SGA President Jason Palmer said Safe Rides has so far helped about 90 students, but it cannot be re-instated until SGA passes a budget later this month. Thus, the program is back in the garage, and all signs point to this luxury idea being a lemon.
The chief problem with Safe Rides remains that the more successful it becomes, the more trouble SGA will have funding the program. However, if Safe Rides were designated as a business venture rather than an SGA philanthropy, students would have more access to a service so desperately needed — sober drivers.
The Journal-News of Hamilton, Ohio, reported on students at the University of Miami at Ohio who created a taxi service tailored specifically for students. Those who need a cab, regardless of the reason, can either purchase a pre-paid card for discount rates, or pay cash when the taxi comes.
Certainly some of the entrepreneurs in the most popular major at Pepperdine could overcome the substantial obstacles to making a similar service available to students, such as acquiring insurance and the necessary license to operate a taxi.
SGA could even help this project along by offering a contract to whoever devises the most feasible business plan. As a facilitator to this project, SGA can achieve far more than if it runs the program in its current form.
And if our student government can’t do that, they could at least send me some $300 Waves flip-flops.
September 25, 2003