CAMPUS PROFILE
DAN SEARS ’ 74
Benjy Downing ’00 ran his own designated-driver service in high school. As a P2P driver he’s taken it to the next level.
Benjy Downing ’00: Listening Over
the Noise on the Bus
‘What do you want to hear?” Benjy Downing ’00 replies when you ask him to tell a
story. “People getting sick? Girls making
out? Think of the most ridiculous thing
and it’s happened on the bus.”
I pick vomit.
“This one time I caught this guy in my
rear-view mirror chugging a beer on the
bus and we make eye contact,” says Down-
ing, laughing in spite of himself. “He tries
to finish the beer really fast, which is a bad
idea after already being out drinking and
being a on a crowded, bumpy bus.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out
what happened next.
10
November/December 2010
“It was like Moses and the parting of
the Red Sea as this kid tries to get off the
bus. People just clear out of the way as he
looks like he’s going to blow. He gets to the
front and just pukes and it gets on my shoes
— ugh, I was so mad — and I steer him
toward the door and he stumbles down the
steps and pukes all over the ground.”
Like most of Downing’s stories from his
nights driving a UNC Point-to-Point bus,
this one has a twist.
“Suddenly this kid sitting up front yells,
‘Look, dude, he’s wearing a pink thong!’
And yes, as the kid leaned over, you could
see that he was wearing a pink thong, puk-
ing his guts out. I went from being as mad
as I’ve ever been to laughing harder than I
ever had.”
It’s all in a night’s work for Downing and
the after-hours “P2P,” which was conceived
as an adjunct to the campus and town bus
system to make students feel safe traveling,
especially at night. Downing is a high school
teacher and coach by day — but it’s the P2P
adventures he lives vicariously through his
riders that he’s written a book about.
