LAWRENCE, Kan.- For students, Massachusettes Street is the place to be on weekends. There are 26 bars in a one mile strip. The amount of alcohol consumed on the average weekend there is insane. So is the amount of students driving home.
"I'd say that probably 70 percent of people who drink on Mass. drive home," says Jesse Allen, bartender at Louise's downtown. So why do these students risk driving home when there are services such as SafeRide and SafeBus? I began calling SafeRide on Saturday night at 2:00 a.m., the time bars closed and patrons headed home.
After the ninth attempt, I finally got through and a ride was on the way. At 2:47 a.m. Bob, a SafeRide driver, arrived. When asked why he thought more students weren't using SafeRide, Bob replied, "Probably because they don't want to wait for our service."
He said that there were six cars on duty, and each car takes home about 20 people on the average Saturday. That's only 120 people using SafeRide per weekend night.
With an estimated 5,000-10,000 people consuming alcohol on Massachusettes Street every Saturday , that is a lot of people driving or walking home.
I surveyed 50 people on how they were getting home before leaving downtown. 27 people were driving or riding with someone in their group, 14 were walking home, seven were calling SafeRide and 2 had designated drivers picking them up.
When Chris Deekman was asked why he was not taking advantage of the SaferRide service on Saturday, he replied, "I tried calling them, but it was always busy."