College of Business Administration

Social and Ethical Issues in Business

Campus Cab

GROUP MEMBERS:

Kara Lunstad
Vanessa McDaniel
Bryon Mulligan
Alison Shoemaker

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Overview
Campus Cab is a proposed agreement and partnership between the Associated Students of San Diego State University and various participating cab companies in and around the San Diego State campus area whereby San Diego State University students are guaranteed a safe ride home.

Students who become intoxicated at certain participating drinking establishments will inform the bar tender that he or she needs a ride home and wants to utilize the campus cab program. After verifying the student's SDSU identification and fee receipt card, a bartender will call one of the participating cab companies. When the taxi arrives, the student will sign a voucher, indicating the student wants to use the service and promises to pay the fare: students will be billed by the Associated Students. Students will be limited to three safe rides per semester and the ride will be limited to a twenty mile radius of the bar establishment.

Ethical and Social Reasons

Deontology: actions are morally right or wrong independent of their consequences based on certain fundamental rules. Campus Cab is morally right because it is consistent with these fundamental principles: It is wrong to drink and drive even if no one gets hurt; it is wrong to stand by and allow people to get hurt even if intervention is expensive because you can't put a price on human life. Everyone must be responsible for their actions. Campus Cab holds students responsible for their actions by requiring them to pay for the service.
Managerial Utilitarianism: an action is right if it produces the best outcome for the greatest number of people based on a limited group of available alternatives. Some of the available alternatives are: (1) publicity campaign against drunk driving; (2) saferides provided by volunteers; (3) Campus Cab. Campus Cab is the best available alternative because it removes more drunk drivers from the streets than the other alternatives and stresses individual responsibility by making the user pay for the service.
Libertarian: an action is right if it maximizes the capacity for free informed personal choice. By providing drunk students with an alternative to driving drunk, their capacity for free, informed personal choice has been enhanced because they have one more alternative to driving drunk.
Virtue: an action is right if it helps us achieve our own personal ideal-a matter of who we are, not what we do. Proactively helping others and preventing harm is virtuous because taking action requires that we have compassion for those who may be hurt by a drunk driver.

Assessment
Campus Cab is currently being considered by the Executive Committee of the Associated Students and has not yet been approved. Assuming the proposal is approved, we expect Campus Cab to effectively reduce drunk driving among SDSU students. If the proposal is not approved, Greeks Against Mismanagement of Alcohol ("GAMA") will sponsor a petition drive to implement the program through the referendum process.

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