The public was given the floor to speak their piece regarding the Safe Ride Home Initiative during the Oxford Board of Aldermen meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 16.
In previous meetings on the initiative, taxi and rideshare app drivers have expressed opposition, and this meeting was no different.
Jeremiah Wells, an Uber driver, is an Oxford resident of six years, who has “struggled through the pandemic just as the City of Oxford has,” and believes this ordinance is yet another curveball to the people in his industry. “I’ve not found one (passenger) in favor of it…”
Wells continued his argument, saying that this proposal would encourage students to act irresponsibly.
“The culture of Oxford is totally wrapped around football and drinking,” said Wells. “How can you expect to be able to continue to provide the perfect opportunity for underage drinking and overdrinking, yet take away the opportunity for the students to get home safely after said drinking?”
Under the proposed ordinance, people will have access to taxis, designated drivers and rideshares, such as Uber and Lyft, in three centralized and well-surveilled locations just off the Square. Wells believes the walk may be too much for someone who is already impaired, or that coordinating the app with the transportation hub will be too difficult.
“Somehow we have forgotten the Wheaton family who lost two children back in 2012. We forgot Amy Ewing, that Highway 6 is named after, not to mention the scores of others killed in the area due to drunk driving that didn’t get the publicity that those cases did,” Wells said. “Please as a board, don’t give (drunk drivers) the keys.”
Mayor Robyn Tannehill spoke after Wells, saying she could not let a few things go unaddressed.
“To assume this board has forgotten about any of those people who have died due to drunk driving because we’re trying to figure out a way to get more students home safely is offensive,” Tannehill said. “I knew many of the people that you listed personally.”
Wells had some words of protest, and while Tannehill had to quash the interruption, she did address several more of his concerns.
“The Oxford Police Department and the Associated Student Body came to us and asked why we let (the idea of a transportation hub) fall off. That’s why this has come back up,” Tannehill said. “Also, the app has ways to make this happen, and to assume we don’t know how to use the app is comical.”
The next speaker was Bennett Matson, the chairman for the External Affairs Committee for ASB at the University of Mississippi. He said he saw a huge opportunity to rectify students waiting or walking across the Oxford community to find an Uber.
“We can instead make it easier, safer and more equitable,” Matson said.
Matson continued by speaking about one of the proposed hubs being right by the parking garage.
“There is no better thing to see, no better incentive, for a student to potentially put their keys away and to not get behind that wheel intoxicated, than to see a line of cars ready to pick them up,” Matson said. “That is, in my opinion, what this comes down to: a proactive policy looking at the thing that we can make a proactive difference against.”
ASB unanimously passed a resolution supporting this bill in October.
“Students did not get involved with this during the summer because we did not know about it,” Matson said. “This is our opportunity for the student body to be heard, and this is the way for everyone to benefit.”
The final vote on the ordinance as amended will be Dec. 7.
