NOTICE
Party on, driver
From falling down to throwing up, party bus drivers see it all
It's 10 p.m. — still early for a Saturday night — and a Polo-clad kid swaggers down the sidewalk, barely able to place one foot in front of the other. Students waiting in line for the party laugh as he stumbles, almost falling into a parked car.
"He's fine," they assure each other. "Hey, kid. Are you okay? Yeah, he's fine."
The kid makes his way to the empty bus waiting outside. Struggling with each step, he wavers up the two stairs and collapses into a seat. The driver casually passes back a black plastic trashcan, and the kid buries his head in it. It's nothing new for the driver. After all, she deals with this almost every night.
Driving a party bus isn't the most glamorous job. It's not very rewarding either, says Rich, Lawrence resident. He drives charter routes at night for the Lawrence Bus Company, 837 Pennsylvania St., which also operates Safe Ride and KU On Wheels bus routes. Rich chauffeurs drunks to and from various bars or parties into the wee hours of the morning. While carting inebriated groups, Rich deals with everything from guys throwing punches at him to girls' toga costumes falling off.
KIT LEFFLER
"I worry most about getting puked on," he says. "I've been lucky, but everyone else has had someone throw up on the bus or on them."
Someone gets sick on the bus just about every ride, Debbie Kelley, manager of Lawrence Bus Company, says. Cleaning up a party bus is not a pretty sight, and gets pretty nasty, she says. Workers literally take a hose and Clorox bleach to flush the whole bus out.
If carting around a bunch of wasted college kids doesn't sound like a good time, try putting up with a busload of drunken middle-aged men. Matt Mitchell, Leavenworth
junior, drives a privately-owned bus for the bus owner and his friends each Wednesday. An older group of men gets rowdy, Mitchell says.
"It's funny how you think there'd be an age gap in maturity but after a couple of drinks, they're pretty insane," he says. "They're pirates when it comes to drinking."
Mitchell stays sober as he schleps the partiers to different bars, casinos and strip clubs. He drives them around while they drink themselves stupid, he says.
"After about midnight, they're too drunk to get back on the bus," he says. "Those
two steps seem to be the hardest climb ever. I have to hang out for 30 minutes when it should just take them five minutes."
Driving around a huge crowd of party-goers can be distracting, says Rich, the charter bus driver. Buses can fill up so much that people are crammed, with hardly any room to move. Most of the time the drunks are overly friendly, Rich says. They try to shake hands, pat him on the back and even offer him drinks.
of roughhousing.A mix is good."
"If it's a bus of all girls, it's loud," Rich says. "If it's a bad bus full of buys, it's just Lots
"We're all going to be drinking heavily, and I don't want anybody driving," Noulles says. "It's a lot easier to get that many people to a game on a bus than trying to get cars organized."
Sarah Noulles, Tulsa, Okla., senior, is organizing a party bus for 45 of her friends to go to a Royals game in May. A party bus is the best way to coordinate that many drunk people, she says.
Kelley, with Lawrence Bus Company, says she'd rather have her drivers be the ones driving around inebriated
people, because they're used to having a lot of people on the bus all the time.
"We're doing the kids a service because they don't have to worry about driving, and we're doing the community a service because they're not out on the road," she says.
Although party bus drivers deal with people getting sick, into fights and being downright annoying, they still rely on the income.
"Putting up with all I put up with, as long as I can pay the bills, is worth it," Mitchell says.
04. 20.2006 JAYPLAY <07