When freshman Rachel Payne was struck and killed by a train in Sept. 2004, university graduate Gianni Zillanella made a decision that would change his whole year. The next month Zillanella, a senior at the time, partnered with his friend Jerry Gargiulo to form the Safe Ride Shuttle service.
When Zillanella and Gargiulo graduated, the program was over.
Zillanella said Payne's death got him thinking about a way to get inebriated students home safely.
"I thought, there's got to be a way people don't have to walk home at night," he said. "I tried to talk to the city and police department at UD but I realized it couldn't get started unless I did it myself."
Every Thursday night at 10, Zillanella and Gargiulo put on gray sweatshirts with "Safe Ride Shuttle" written in red on the back and picked up fraternity and sorority members who needed a ride. The pair used its own cars, cell phones and gas and drove until 3 or 4 a.m. On Saint Patrick's Day, Zillanella said they gave between 175 and 200 rides. Between October and May 2005, Zillanella estimates the pair drove more than 800 students home.
"Students should be given the chance to make responsible decisions," he said. "They should be allowed to say, 'You know, I've had too much to drink, I'm not going to drive and I'm not going to walk, I'm going to call someone.' "
Zillanella said his program had a waiver but they did not use it for fear of scaring off students. He said he realizes the program had legal consequences but the benefits were too great.
"We were crazy, the risks we were opening ourselves up to were nuts," he said. "Call us stupid, but we wanted to do something to help."
He contacted Public Safety, as well as University and Newark Police to inform them of what he was doing but they did not offer to help.
"I understand their reasoning and why they couldn't but I felt like I was brushed off, given the cold shoulder," he said.
Zillanella learned there were liability issues such as insurance that made the program risky for the university or city to actively support a safe-ride program.
"I know the university can't say underage drinking is OK, but college students will be college students," he said. "Whatever the city does, college students are going to find a way to drink."
Mayor Vance A. Funk III, a lawyer, said Zillanella called him for legal advice.
"From a legal standpoint it made me a little nervous because my first concern was if he was properly insured," Funk said. "Legally, the city could get involved but we do not know where the personnel would come from. Right now, we are struggling to have enough people on the streets to keep the crime down."
The university is protected under the Sovereign Immunity Doctrine, which allows them legal protection under the state. If the university had insurance for a program like the Safe Ride Shuttle, however, the institution would be open to lawsuits.
Public Safety director James Flatley said it is impossible for Public Safety to be involved with programs like the Safe Ride Shuttle.
Zillanella said he was angry with the way Tracy Downs, program director for the Center for Counsel and Student Development, addressed alcohol issues on campus. Under a nine-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that ended in August, Downs had directed the Building Responsibility Coalition, a committee which dealt with underage drinking on campus.
Zillanella said the committee's tactics did not deal with the problem.
"It was more bureaucratic crap to save face and look like they were doing something," he said. "I was a student, I know how students are and none of these things hit home."
One of the committee's initiatives was funding a university bus, which ran Thursday nights from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Zillanella said the bus was not enough for students who needed a way home.
"The reality is if you were out at Kate's or the Stone Balloon and it was 1:05 a.m., are you going to wait 40 minutes for the bus or walk home?" he said. "You need to do things that are going to affect change."
Downs said the committee looked at ways to establish a student ride program but the legal issues halted progress.
"We came to the conclusion that there is a lot of liability with a safe ride program," she said. "The university cannot run such a program."
Downs, now the chairwoman of the university's Alcohol Policy and Education Council, said the committee was effective in addressing underage drinking.
"We had a large grant and worked on student alcohol consumption on this campus," she said. "[Zillanella] was running his own personal shuttle for females."
Downs said the Delaware Designated Driver program was created in November 2004 after discussion about a university safe ride program ended.
Focused on the Wilmington and Newark area, DDD will pick up anyone who is too intoxicated to drive.
Director Allen Ladd said the nonprofit organization was designed based on research that indicating most drunk drivers did not expect to be impaired at the end of the night and felt forced to drive home.
Ladd said volunteers are divided into teams of two and are sent in a car to the caller's location. One driver transports the person home in their own car while the volunteer follows. The program runs from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
Ladd said it is a confidential service, as callers are only identified by first name, and these safeguards ensure thesafety of clients.
"Our volunteers have training to determine alcohol poisoning and need consent from the individual to get driven home," he said. "Volunteers also have to follow safety guidelines which are part of the insurance company requirements."
While Zillanella acknowledges Public Safety's escort program, he said he disagrees with people who feel his program is not needed.
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