Opinion: The University should purchase Buzz Rides

O n Aug. 27, this board criticized a new nail polish designed to detect date-rape drugs. Though we lauded the efforts of four young men to prevent rape and sexual assault, we reasoned that their advertisements, which focused on “empowering” women, unfairly placed the burden of preventing rape on the shoulders of potential survivors rather than on potential assailants.

The recent debate about funding SafeWalk and Buzz Rides revisits this debate around entrepreneurship and safety and poses a set of related questions to student government and University administration. To better guarantee student safety, the Department of Public Safety should purchase Buzz Rides.

The startup offers students free rides home between 10 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. It earns profit from advertisements affixed to their electronic carts. According to Joey Skavroneck, the University has already contracted Buzz Rides to provide rides for Chancellor Folt and members of the Board of Trustees. Many of the company’s rides are given to students leaving bars.

Though some of the subtext surrounding this debate suggests otherwise, students exiting bars and houses around campus late at night deserve safe transportation home.

Students who have been drinking are at a heightened risk of both violent assault and other injuries as compared to their sober counterparts. Furthermore, a majority of sexual assaults are committed by persons known to the survivor. The threat of being assaulted on your walk home by someone you know is greater than the danger of being assaulted by a stranger on campus. Buzz Rides thus provides a vital function, one arguably more necessary to students than comparable programs, such as SafeWalk.

Buzz Rides already provides students with safe rides home more efficiently than its counterparts in Safe Ride and SafeWalk. Skavroneck calculated that one Buzz Ride costs the company 75 cents, whereas one SafeWalk costs $25 in student fees. With its deeper pockets, DPS could increase efficiency further by insuring vehicles, buying parking spaces and expanding the fleet, creating economies of scale that will drive down prices and deliver even more low-cost rides.

The staff of Buzz Rides might well prefer the freedom to run their business that independent ownership engenders. It is their prerogative to refuse to sell. Given their sound business model and the tremendous demand for their service, they could reasonably request to be paid a sum substantially above Buzz Rides’ current value.

Ideally, the company could have maintained ownership and received student funding through the student safety and security committee, administered via the Campus Y. Such a promising arrangement appeared possible only a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, a series of missteps on the part of student government have closed off this option.

Since last spring, the cooperation between student government and the students who run Buzz Rides has been disappointing. On May 6, the student safety and security committee allocated $15,000 in funding for Buzz Rides. The money came from student fees and was to be administered through CUBE at the Campus Y.

The committee failed to meet quorum, so the decision was annulled. A former member of Student Congress also filed a lawsuit with the Student Supreme Court against Buzz Rides on the basis that for-profit groups cannot receive funding from student fees according to the Student Code. This fall, the new Student Congress clarified that student fees may not be given to for-profit groups. Absent a change of heart from Student Congress and administrators in Student Affairs, no student fees will be going to any student company.

Buzz Rides is no panacea, but it does offer thousands of students safe rides home. For a very affordable price, the University could help it expand through the only vehicle left at its disposal: purchasing it.