As soon as the light turned green and the RIDE began accelerating up Cross Street, a group of students sprung into the street. As the van came to a screeching halt, the students scurried past in laughter. Mark Fazzino, a well-known RIDE driver of three years, gave a sigh of irritation.
“That happens all the time. Seriously, all the time,” said Fazzino, whose shift runs from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Spending my Thursday night in the RIDE as Fazzino’s copilot was a much different experience than I have previously had in the van trying to get from party A to party B.
It was a rainy, fairly quiet evening—one of those nights when you’re not sure what’s happening and not really motivated to figure it out. If you’re not careful, you end up staying in with friends, drinking and discussing what the hell is happening on “Lost.”
After five minutes of cruising in the RIDE, however, I knew exactly where the parties were happening. While the drivers are not allowed to tell you precise locations of parties, you are allowed to ask where people have been going that night. Then you are on the highway to the good life, instead of being stranded on Fountain Avenue after leaving a perfectly fun party on High Street.
Here’s another tidbit of information: when the drivers tell you that you can’t bring your drink into the RIDE, forcing you to dump it out or (as is probably more often the case) chug it, it’s not an issue of whether the drink is alcoholic or not. The real reason behind this discretion is that each driver is responsible for the upkeep of hir van.
“My shift ends at four,” Fazzino said. “If someone spills something, instead of going home and getting ready for my next job starting at six, I have to go to the gas station and clean it up.”
Drivers usually don’t have that problem, though, because most students—including all those I saw—follow proper and polite RIDE etiquette. Nearly everyone who ventured into the van said hello, asked how the night was going, and thanked Fazzino for the lift.
“Students in general are really polite,” Fazzino said. “My only complaint is when people call the RIDE and they don’t come out to the van when I get there. But, for the most part, we don’t have any trouble.”
On the occasion that someone does drop a ’tude with the driver, it is not necessarily forgotten.
“If that happens, I tell the drivers what the student is wearing and no one will pick him up for the rest of the night,” Fazzino said.
As students packed into the van, hyped to party, the conversation ranged from classwork to boy-finding strategy. While Fazzino assured me that he doesn’t eavesdrop—which was believable considering he answered his cell phone about every 30 seconds—he does admit that students like to chitchat with him. As girls constitute the great majority of Fazzino’s passengers, he hears all the current campus gossip about hook-ups, break-ups and make-ups—although he would never dare repeat what he hears.
For a lot of students, myself included, the drivers can be good listeners and even provide a little therapy after a raucous evening. They are the perfect designated driver: you feel safe because you know they’re sober, but unlike your parents, they won’t make you feel guilty for drinking or being out late.
While the RIDE presents obvious advantages to students who are feeling too lazy to walk from party to party, it was designed for a more serious purpose: to keep students safe.
Throughout the night, Fazzino identified girls walking by themselves and encouraged them to take the RIDE. When he dropped students off at parties, he reminded them all to call him when they wanted to go home. He even waited outside houses or dorms until the girls got inside—a good-natured action that once sparked some misunderstanding.
“I was waiting outside for a girl to get into a house,” Fazzino said. “She yelled, ’Why are you staring at me?’ I answered, ’It’s three in the morning and I want to make sure you get in all right.’”
Fazzino, who has a son in college, explained that picking up students who are walking alone and ensuring they make it safely to their destination is the most rewarding aspect of his job.
“If I’m helping out these kids, I know someone’s doing the same for mine,” Fazzino said.
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