When Benjamin Tran gets in his car at night to transport his clientele, he doesn’t do it for the money, he does it for the entertainment. 

Tran, a sophomore in psychology, said he likes making a little extra cash as well.

“The people I do drive home who are intoxicated are kind of funny.  From a taxi driver’s perspective, it’s only about the money,” Tran said.  “It’s more for my entertainment and I can meet people while I’m doing it.”

Ryan Clodfelter, a junior in biological sciences, and Kyle Parker, a senior in business administration, came up with the idea to create PACKspacs together.  Spacs stands for the student provided alternative cab service. 

The goal of PACKspacs is to have a designated driving service for students.

Right now, PACKspacs is run entirely from Facebook. Students who want to help out and drive can post their phone number and times available to drive directly on the page. Students who need rides can then go to the page and pick whomever they want to call that night for a ride.

They picked Facebook as a starting point because “everybody’s already on it” Clodfelter said. The Facebook group is restricted to the N.C. State network so the only people who can join have to attend the university or be an alumnus.

“Facebook is such a part of everyday life, people might not think about how they are going to get home until they log on Facebook before they go out and see PACKspacs,” said Parker.

In the three weeks since the Facebook page was created, the group has acquired more than 320 members. Parker and Clodfeltersaid they are excited about how fast it took off with such little advertising.

Tipping drivers is encouraged, but not mandatory. Clodfelter and Parker hope to reach out to students who are afraid to call a cab, cannot afford one, or just want to avoid the hassle of calling someone and instead drive drunk.  Making students feel like they have to pay for the rides might deter them from calling which could increase drunken driving.

“We know drunken driving happens around campus,” Clodfelter said. “It’s not like we are encouraging people to drink, we just want to help them have a safe night.”

Parker and Clodfelter said they are both genuinely concerned about their fellow N.C. State students and want to raise awareness about drunken driving. They met with the executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and discussed a partnership. They have also discussed taking the program to other local universities such as Chapel Hill, Duke and Wake Forest.

In the future they hope to have a system that allows for reviews and feedback on drivers. They even have hopes of developing a Smartphone application that would allow students to access the list of drivers right from their device.

Social networking sites do bring about certain safety concerns that are present with this type of service. There is no way to monitor who posts on the page so students have no way of knowing exactly who they are riding with.

Clodfelter and Parker hope students will check out who they are going to be riding with before they actually make the call.

“You can see mutual friends so you can call your friends and check out the person. We’re really just a service; we’re not endorsing any one person who writes on the wall,” said Parker.

Anna Powell, a freshman in biological sciences, said she likes the idea of the service but some aspects of it are uncomfortable. 

“I wouldn’t personally feel comfortable putting random people in my car because I am a 19 year old girl, and I also don’t know how comfortable I would feel calling someone on Facebook since the security is not that reliable,” Powell said.

If satisfaction does not come from helping the community and making extra cash it can always be found in the humor associated with drunken passengers, according to Clodfelter.

“I had my first ‘thrower-upper.’ I was on some side road and pulled over real quick. He just threw up on the side of the road and then just kept going until I dropped him off at the next place. If you’re doing a designated driver service its some of the things you have to consider,” Clodfelter said.