Guys, we’ve got a problem. There’s been more incidents on the recreational shuttle that we know as the Ibis Ride (a.k.a. the “Drunk Bus”). It all started going downhill after the fiasco that occurred in the last Halloween, where students rushed buses, cops defended themselves against student hording, and major shuttle delays occured due to traffic and a mismanagement of logistics. However, this is the tip of the iceberg with the Ibis Ride program.
Every weekend, we can get on the Ibis Ride and expect to see vomiting, violent encounters, and an overall lack of order on the buses. Even the shuttle monitors are helpless due to their lack of authority. It’s not the duty of shuttle monitors, police officers, or bus drivers to keep us in check while they safely transport us to the Grove. That is our responsibility. Using the Ibis Ride is a privilege, not a right.
This past weekend, I decided to pass on going out by shadowing and observing an Ibis Ride monitor for an entire Thursday night. Here were some highlights that caught my attention: a couple having foreplay on the way back to campus at 3:07 a.m., a student throwing a pizza on the curb upset they couldn’t bring it on the bus and then claiming it was a “bomb,” and two instances where students vomited just outside the bus. Enough said for just a typical night on the Ibis Ride.
Student Government is trying its best to save our shuttle. Unfortunately, there are some students who make it hard for us to do so. We need to STOP acting like immature idiots on the Ibis Ride, and start acting like responsible adults to prove that we deserve this privilege. We need to act with respect to the monitors and to the drivers so that we can keep our free ride to the Grove. If you see somebody abusing this privilege, tell them to stop or take a cab and you’ll “see their drunk ass there.”
I can’t stress enough the importance of this immediate change of behavior, starting in the fall, if we want to keep the Ibis Ride. Especially for Halloween.
Danny Carvajal
Student Government president