Change in passenger van policy invokes criticism

By Dave Stephens
Assistant Campus Editor

Purdue University’s decision to change its passenger van policy, allowing University vans to only carry eight passengers instead of 15, is drawing criticism from some student organizations and putting others in financial strain.

"It makes traveling really inconvenient for us," said Theresa Rey, president of the Purdue Women’s Lacrosse Club and a senior in the School of Science. "We usually have 20 to 25 girls traveling on a road trip and now it makes it much more expensive for us to travel because we have to take two more vans."

Purdue decided to change the passenger van policy after a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which showed that 15 and 12 passenger vans are more prone to rollovers as the number of passengers increases.

Alan Hoffman, a senior in the Schools of Engineering and president of the Reamer Club, said he has never heard of anyone having problems with the University vans.

"In fact, when you get more people in them they handle a little better, or so it seems," said Hoffman.

Hoffman said the new van policy wouldn't have a major effect on the Reamer Club’s road trips during the football season because they only take 10 people, but it could effect the number of club members travelling to bowl games.

"We usually take a lot of people to bowl games," said Hoffman. "So we’re going to have to use more vans, which is going to bring our costs up. We might have to restrict the number of people who go."

Hoffman said the additional costs might not be a big burden on the club, since the Athletic Department picks up parts of its costs.

But not all student organizations are so lucky.

"It’s going to affect us big time; it's going to be more expensive for us to travel and that money has to come out of our funds," said Mike Gryn, president of the Purdue Hockey Club and a senior in the Schools of Engineering.

Gryn said the club is going to have to increase its fund-raising efforts but that they haven’t figured out how to raise the extra money yet.

"We didn’t find out about the new policy until last Tuesday, it would have been nice to know about this so we could have planned for it," said Gryn.

Rey said the Women’s Lacrosse Club will have to pay for their extra vans out of their own funds, something they don’t have a lot of.

"The new policy just doesn’t make sense," Rey said. "It doesn’t make sense to carry only eight passengers when all (the University's) done is remove the two extra seats."

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Campus editor: Laura Pelner

Assistant campus editors: Kurt Esposito, Dave Stephens

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