BY TRAVIS ALLAN EDWARDS
Designated Driver
The value of the UO’s DDS program
I
am a driver for the UO Designated Driver Shuttle. In just one year on the job I
have been stolen from and physically assaulted. I’ve
seen a van vandalized and another hit by a car. I’ve
broken up multiple fights and cleaned up unpleasant
amounts of bodily fluids, but most importantly, I’ve
prevented countless people from driving an auto-
mobile while under the influence. And we’re open
seven nights a week.
We have recently, for reasons unknown to us,
come under attack by fellow students, being
accused of not doing our job properly. Vague arti-
cles were written for The Daily Emerald with unclear
accusations, giving our riders the false impression that
our employees have been driving while intoxicated. Two of our
employees did drink alcohol on one occasion while secluded in our office, but they
never got behind the wheel of, or set foot in, a DDS van that night. The necessary
actions were taken to resolve that one isolated incident. However, because of the
accusations leveled against us, we are still asked on a nightly basis why our employ-
ees are driving drunk, which never happened to begin with.
As a program funded by the UO, we give rides to at least 200 university students
on an average weekend night. We are frequently so busy on weekends that we have
four to five vans working simultaneously to handle the high demand for our service.
These seats are filled with students who are under the influence and are unable to
drive, or simply students who are looking for a safe ride home to seemingly all cor-
ners of Eugene and Springfield.
After the first article was written, almost all of our passengers were under the
impression that our employees were driving under the influence. I do not see why
this one event which only involved two employees should have such an impact on
DDS as a whole. There is no reason for our riders to ever feel unsafe when riding in
our vans.
The articles written about us depict us as an unorganized group of people who
have no passion for our jobs, but these assumptions are based on the few conflicts
we have encountered this year. They overlook all the positive contributions our pro-
gram offers. While we have had tough issues that have been dealt with, we still con-
tinue to offer a rare and widely used service to university students by preventing as
many people as possible from getting behind the wheel while intoxicated.
DDS has five operational vans, which are used every week. And with about
20,000 students at the university, the vans are (not surprisingly) used to capacity
almost every night of the week. However, with students living in every pocket of
Eugene and Springfield, having five vans running around is not always enough to
get everybody safely home quickly. We are forced to periodically turn off our
phones so that wait times do not amount to several hours.
This action has been depicted as negligence. But we can only take so many calls.
On weekend nights it is common for us to work far past the end of our shift, some-
times keeping us out past 4 am.
We have hit our share of snags and complications, but I do not see why these
small and infrequent occurrences should be used to make generalized assumptions
about our service. Regardless of what both the past and future hold for DDS, we will
continue to try our hardest to provide the community a valuable service by provid-
ing students an alternative to driving intoxicated, and a safe ride home.
Travis Allan Edwards is a driver for the UO Designated Driver Shuttle, phone 346-RIDE.
N E W S • A R T S • C U LT U R E
NEXT ISSUE COMING
AUGUST 11, 2005
RESERVE YOUR AD SPACE BY AUG. 5 • 484-0519
4 JUNE 30, 2005
TO THE EDITOR
HITTING CONCRETE
Emily Willie’s frustration and disgust of
being “stuck in Eugene” (6/23) and the per-
ceived snubbing of her son is palpable.
However, it’d be interesting to know more
about this family. Are they from somewhere
else?
It’s taken me eight years of living and
working in different countries to discover
that when you are from Somewhere Else, as
uncomfortable and isolating as it can be, to
not fit in is part of the experience. Birds of a
feather and all that. Do they hail from the East
Coast? Out East it’s “I heard what you said —
I’ll discard the part I didn’t like.” Out West
it’s “I can’t believe you said that — I’ll just
avoid you from now on.”
What about her son — was he an asshole?
A bore? Was his sense of humor lame? Or
was he just so smart he was ripe for being cut
down a la the “tall poppy syndrome”?
Some people tell me it has taken them
four to 17 years to feel accepted in Eugene.
Others find their spot instantly. A friend told
me “I have a giant acorn tree in my backyard.
Every year it drops a shitload of acorns. Some
hit the soil, some hit cement. The ones that hit
the cement don’t grow.”
You can hit concrete anywhere. Finding
that gravely spot, in the sun, where you can
take root and spread limbs, takes a quite a bit
of doing.
It has taken me a long time to realize that
in some places you go in with light sabers
swooshing, others, you have to be still, watch
what moves, what gives under pressure, what
rises to meet you and what doesn’t. One day
I’ll wake up, and that stuck feeling will have
dissolved. Just at the edges.
Lynette Chiang
www.galfromdownunder.com
A FUN GUY AMONG US
One June 14 I listened to KOPT’s Nancy
Stapp interview John Musumeci. And when
you consider that, while the M-Man’s wife is
the actual station owner, he must nevertheless
have some degree of influence over Nancy’s
livelihood, I feel she conducted herself rather
admirably. Maybe she wasn’t as hard-hitting
as I’d have liked, but still I thought she per-
formed better than others might have under
similar circumstances.
I do have to echo one complaint she ex-
pressed; or rather, I was left wondering why so
many of the man’s critics failed to call in and
grill him. Of course, it could have been that the
lines were full; nor did she choose to read e-
mails aloud that day. I didn’t attempt to call,
but then I don’t usually phone talk shows,
simply because instead of a reasoned, rational
exchange and examination of ideas, too often
things turn to shouting, name-calling,
interrupting, and wandering — or
deflecting — from the main issues. Pointless,
really.
As for Musumeci’s performance, I got the
impression of a man trying to paint himself as
“well-meaning but misunderstood.” OK;
maybe. But one thing he said did catch my at-
tention. When asked why he goes to so much
effort to make so much money, his reply was:
“Because it’s fun.”
Now it could just be me, but I find it hard
to be sympathetic to a world view that justi-
fies influencing decisions which affect liter-
ally hundreds of thousands of lives in major
ways, simply because doing so gets one’s ya-
ya’s off.
Bill Smee
Springfield
ECO-TOURISM HERE
Last week I attended an interesting event
called FACTS (Family and Community
Town Supper) sponsored by the Helios
Network here in Eugene. FACTS is a series
of community dinner meetings aimed at edu-
cating and discussing issues of importance to
the development of this place we call home.
The theme of the FACTS dinner I at-
tended was eco-tourism. I am interested in
this subject for a number of reasons. First, I
represent an economic development project
called Oregon Crafted that has just published
a tour guide to rural artists studios. This proj-