It appears that the Student Lifeline program needs a lifeline of its own. Lifeline, an ASUA Senate-sponsored project, made its debut last week after a long summer of organizational difficulties. According to the Sept. 16 Wildcat, the Lifeline service met a bumpy road due to confusion with operators and lack of available cabs.

ASUA senator Adam Bronnenkant, who is in charge of the program, told the Wildcat, "We were expecting that there would be bugs to work out ÷ this is one of them." He was confident that the service would work as planned.

But students and the local taxi service that are currently working with Lifeline are not so confident.

Student Lifeline Inc. is a New York-based corporation that aids communities in setting up and funding cab services that can transport students in emergency situations 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The system is based on Lifeline "cards" that are given out to the UA community. Local advertisers have paid Student Lifeline Inc. to place ads on these cards that fund the program ÷ or foot the cab bills.

The cab service transports passengers to their home, a shelter, the police station or the hospital. The cab service then charges Lifeline for the cab fair plus a 15 percent gratuity fee.

ASUA president Doug Hartz said in the Aug. 26 Wildcat that students do not need give a reason to call. "Any time a student feels uncomfortable, they can call. Your emergency is your own emergency," Hartz stressed.

Well, on Sunday night, I decided I needed to call Lifeline. Sitting outside at Chuy's, I attempted to call a cab to take me home.

Following the instructions on the Lifeline card, I dialed 1-800-543-3829 and waited. It rang and rang. Finally, a whiny voice picked up the phone and answered, "Student Lifeline."

As I indicated that I needed a ride, she took down my name, phone number and home address because she specifically told me that was where I was going to be dropped off. Then she put me on hold.

A few minutes later she came back and said, "Unfortunately, there is not a server in your area running now. We hope to have a carrier this week; we are working on it."

Good thing I was not on the side of a dark road with a broken-down car or being followed by some creep.

I put in a call to speak with the president of Student Lifeline, UA alumnus Richard Signarino. Unfortunately, he only works mornings and was unavailable.

Attempting to dig up why there were no cab servers in Tucson for a program that began weeks ago, I called the Discount Cab company, who not only had an advertisement on the card, but was the supposed carrier. An answering machine gave me the information that Discount Cab has not yet opened for service in Tucson. So, I called their headquarters in Phoenix to find out what the deal was. The operator found out that Discount Cab had not yet opened in Tucson, and she didn't know when they would. She then explained that Yellow Cab was filling in for UA's Lifeline service.

Now, if Yellow Cab was participating in Lifeline, why couldn't I get a ride on Sunday?

So, I called Yellow Cab. When I told the operator that I had some questions about Lifeline, she didn't know what I was talking about. Dan Baker, the general manager, responded that Yellow Cab is indeed filling in for Discount Cab, but as to whether it was temporary or not, he had no idea. He received a phone call from Signarino last week, who asked him to work with Lifeline. After Baker agreed to work for the program, Signarino immediately said, "By the way, we have a call right now."

On Sept. 18, Yellow Cab gave the first Lifeline ride to a UA student. The fare was $17. When I asked him about the gratuity charge, Baker didn't know that a tip was included in the Lifeline deal.

ASUA Senator Bronnenkant was too busy on Monday to return Wildcat calls.

The fact of the matter is that, in theory, Student Lifeline is a good idea. But the ASUA Senate is irresponsible in handing out the Lifeline cards that for weeks have had operational problems that have consequently left students in emergency situations ÷ stranded.