The Buff Bus program and its drivers are working to provide a safe travel option for the CU community.
The bus transports students around campus and between Williams Village and Bear Creek Apartments.
Bryan Flansburg, director of transportation services, said becoming a Buff Bus driver is a lengthy process.
Flansburg explained what the qualifications are to handle the responsibility of transporting students.
“The first thing we do is an interview process to determine if they are going to be capable of driving a larger vehicle like a bus,” Flansburg said. “Then, after the interview process, we hire them pending a couple of things. The first thing is they have to do a pre-employment drug and alcohol testing and a physical, and they have to pass a written test with the state of Colorado … in order to get a commercial driver’s license.”
He said the applicants, who can be either students or staff, must also go through 55 hours of training before they are ready to drive the Buff Bus.
Even with these requirements and training, he said there are of course accidents, but almost all have been minor.
“Most of our accidents have been very minor,” he said. “The Buff Bus has been in operation since 1968 and, to my knowledge – I’ve been here 24 years – we’ve only hit one pedestrian in that time period.”
He said the drivers focus heavily on safety in order to keep up such a good track record.
“We have a bus driver meeting once a semester to meet with all our drivers just to reinforce the safety and what they need to do and to make sure everybody is following that,” he said.
He said they also have supervisors who are occasionally on route making sure everything is operating smoothly and in a safe manner.
Some students said they agree the Buff Bus is a safe way to get around campus.
“I didn’t have any problems [with safety],” said Hali Wolf, a 19-year-old sophomore integrative physiology and French major.
Wolf said she rode the Buff Bus her freshman year.
Funmu Ogunremi, a 20-year-old senior and integrative physiology and economics major, said there is one instance she can think of when riding the Buff Bus may have been unsafe.
“Well, this morning the driver kept honking, and I guess she was in a hurry based on the scheduling,” Ogunremi said. “That’s the only time.”
She said she had more of a problem with the schedule than safety.
“They [the buses] need to be on time,” she said. “If the schedule says they are going to be there a certain time, they need to be there. Sometimes they don’t space it out and there will be four coming at one time. That doesn’t make sense for four buses to come all at once.”
Even with numerous students relying on the Buff Bus daily for transportation, a rumor circling around CU and many other campuses is that the school will pay full tuition should a student pedestrian be struck.
Unfortunately for those students looking for a quick way to pay tuition, Flansburg simply said, “That is not true.”
Contact Breaking News Editor Isa Jones at Alexandra.i.jones@colorado.edu.
