Raiders, Let’s Get Rowdy!

Two Texas Tech juniors have gone the extra mile to ensure their fellow college students’ safety.

Rowdy Raider Night Shuttle LLC, a small business created by Austin Black and Ty Myers, serves as a safe but fun way to get around Lubbock after a night of drinking. Black, the 20-year-old president and founder of Rowdy Raider, said the business began in November 2014, after drunk driving caused several deaths around the city.

Photo courtesy of Rowdy Raider Night Shuttle LLC

Photo courtesy of Rowdy Raider Night Shuttle LLC

The Hub@TTU recently reported that Men’s Health Magazine listed Lubbock as No. 8 overall in its ranking of “America’s Drunkest Cities” and No. 1 in DUI deaths nationally.

“It wasn’t really safe for the kids to go out and drink and go out to the bars,” Black said. “We wanted to fix the problem and make the solution fun at the same time.”

Photo courtesy of Rowdy Raider Night Shuttle LLC

Photo courtesy of Rowdy Raider Night Shuttle LLC

Thus the Rowdy Raider Night Shuttle was born. The service offers inexpensive transportation to anywhere in the city limits. A group of a minimum of five people can call, text or Facebook-message the shuttle’s crew at any time, day or night. Passengers must provide a pick-up address and pay $5 each for a one-way trip or $8 each for a round trip. (The prices on the shuttle’s Facebook page are different but about to be updated.)

The shuttle can carry up to 30 people at a time. Passengers are allowed to bring their own alcoholic beverages onto the bus with them, as long as they are over the age of 21. Black said the bus is in full party mode—complete with lights, a disco ball, trash cans for those who have had a little too much to drink, and a stereo that is sure to play a few of everyone’s favorite tunes.

Max Perry, a senior marketing major, said he has taken many rides on the shuttle and has never been disappointed with the service.

“The bus is pretty cool,” Perry said. “Good music is always blaring on the stereo, and Austin will pick you up wherever you ask him to. He’s a really dependable guy doing a great thing to help get people somewhere safely.”

The Rowdy Raider bus is not limited to nightly trips to bars, Black said. The shuttle has also hosted rides for bachelor and bachelorette parties, sorority and fraternity date parties and formals, Kalf Fry, Chili Fest, and Delta Chi’s weeklong trip to Breckenridge. The shuttle also offers $2 rides to home football games.

Photo courtesy of Rowdy Raider Night Shuttle LLC

Photo courtesy of Rowdy Raider Night Shuttle LLC

“We’ve pretty much done every big drink event in the past year,” Black said.

A weekly bar crawl, a second Rowdy Raider bus and partnerships with nightclubs around town are some ideas Black and Myers said they have in the works for their growing business.

“As a business, I think we’ve accomplished our goal of creating a safer way for drunk college kids to get where they’re going,” Black said. “That’s what we’re big on, helping these kids not drink and drive.”

 

About Breann Robinson

Senior journalism major and Investigative Reporter for the Hub@TTU. Really good at making friends, really bad at math.