As part of the Saferide program, Charles Murtagh, Lawrence Bus Company employee, drives students home on a Friday night in the company's van. Unlike students at any other university in the nation, KU students have the option of using Saferide, which provides them with transportation home from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.
Leave the Driving to Saferide
Story by Dave Morantz
Photos by Tyler Wirken
The Wait
ABOVE: Saferide employees wait for the night to begin in the Lawrence Bus Company's office, Eighth and Pennsylvania streets, for the night to begin. Every night all of the Saferide employees check in at the office, sign in, and walk across the street to the garage and get in their cars.
RIGHT: Saferide dispatcher Caroline Crawley, Lawrence resident, sorts out the calls on her desk as they come in. Crawley is responsible for answering the phone, organizing the calls so nobody is overlooked, and keeping in touch with drivers via CB radio.
The back seats of Saferide vehicles have seen it all. Everything from beer to homework papers have spilled across the cars' factory cloth interior, not to mention many drunk students' dinners.
Since its creation in 1993, Saferide has provided a countless number of KU students with the only program of its kind in the nation.
KU students exclusively fund the program and are the sole users of the free service. Every student pays a $14 transportation fee each semester that pays for KU on Wheels, the bus company's lift van and Saferide. A portion of the money funds the program's $80,000 budget.
All students with a valid KUIL can get a free ride home between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. every night of the week. After Wednesday, May 14, Saferide will stop running until August, when students return to school for the fall semester.
But many students incorrectly believe that only drunk barflies can use the service.
"There's the common misconception that you have to be drunk to take it," said Gabe Ortiz, Topeka senior and Saferide driver. "It's called Saferide. It's safety. All the students are paying for it so we don't see why they can't all take it."
On a typical night, Ortiz will respond to approximately 20 to 30 calls, some for students needing rides home from bars and some for students needing rides home from studying on campus. For many students without vehicles, the buses do not run late enough to get them from campus to their homes.
At 10:45 each night, the drivers set up their CB radios, make sure their cars have enough oil and water then roll out of the garage at Eighth and Pennsylvania Streets. After checking their radios with the dispatcher, the four drivers head up to the Union and wait for calls. On Friday and Saturday nights, another driver runs the 10-person van, affectionately called the "vomit comet" or "chuck wagon."
Saferide drivers must be older than 21 years of age, have clean driving records, and enjoy staying up late at night.
A dispatcher handles phone calls and assigns pickups to drivers.
Ortiz said he enjoyed the job, despite the late nights and sometimes raucous passengers.
"I'm used to the bar smell by now," he said. "Sometimes I get requests from people to play with the CB, but I'm really glad that I pick up some of these people."
And occasionally, drivers receive tips.
Philip Rhodes, Manchester,
England, junior, said he often
tipped drivers because the service
was priceless.
"It's the greatest thing we've seen since we've gotten here," Rhodes and roommate Duncan Salisbury-Jones, Birmingham, England, junior, said that they consider Saferide the greatest thing they've seen since moving to Lawrence.
Rhodes added that he did not mind waiting a while at a bar for a Saferide driver to take them home.
"I'm truly scared of some of the people I've seen driving home," he said. "If we have to wait, so be it."
The Ride
TOP: After attending the Gamma Phi Beta semi-formal party at the Knights of Columbus building, Cheryl Hirth, Kansas City junior, laughs with friends while directing Charles Murtagh, Saferide driver, to her apartment where she was holding a post-formal party.
ABOVE: Sharing a humorous moment in the Saferide van while coming home from a local bar, Jason Epstein, Omaha, Neb., freshmen, and Keith Sammon, a junior from Kansas State, await their destination of Naismith Hall. On any given night, Saferide responds to approximately 20 or 30 calls.