Limousines will still take students to the Paly prom this spring, unlike at rival Gunn High School, where the principal recently banned students from taking limos to prom.

“We have restrictions already in place for how students get to and from the prom at Paly and I have no intentions of changing them,” said Dr. Jacqueline McEvoy, Paly principal.

Allison Davies-Mullins, student activities director at Paly, says Paly will use the Rollz Royce Limousine Service of Palo Alto to supply the limos for prom this spring. Paly requires all students attending prom to purchase transportation through contracted limousine services. No student is allowed to drive or to get a ride from someone other than an approved limo driver.

According to Gunn’s paper, The Oracle, the Gunn administration and Gunn principal Noreen Likins decided to ban limos a few weeks ago because some of the limo drivers may not hold the proper California Highway Patrol certificate to drive the students.

“Limo companies were aware [of the requirement], but there are still few who have drivers with the license,” Likins said. The Oracle stated that the decision to ban limousines was based partly on equity and economic fairness.

The California Vehicle Code states that if a vehicle is carrying more than 10 people, including the driver, to a school related event, then the vehicle and driver are required to have a School Pupil Activity Bus Certificate. The only exception to this is “if the vehicle is yellow,” said Maurice Brewster, president and CEO of Rollz Royce Limousine Service.

California Vehicle Code 545b excludes passenger cars and motor trucks where students sit in the passenger section and the total passenger seats is nine or less, from the school bus definition and, thus, from the special licensing requirements. Brewster said his company only supplies vehicles that carry fewer than nine passengers and that Rollz Royce requires its affiliate companies, which supply larger vehicles, to prove the drivers and vehicles hold the proper certificates. “Otherwise,” Brewster said, if drivers are checked by police then “kids get left at prom,” and that is not acceptable to Rollz Royce nor to Paly.

According to Brewster, some limo companies bypass the CHP requirements by driving the high school students from a private residence to a restaurant close to the prom venue where they have dinner and then walk to the prom. The Paly prom traditionally includes dinner, so attendees go directly to the prom location. Brewster says that Rollz Royce Limousine Service does not use this technical bypass of CHP regulations designed to protect student safety.

This year the limos for Paly’s prom can carry between four and 31 students, according to Mullins. Rollz Royce Limo is supplying vehicles ranging from Lincoln Town Cars to Land Yachts, with stretch limos and stretch SUVs as in-between size possibilities. Brewster said that Rollz Royce Limo will make sure that all the drivers and vehicles carrying nine or more students will be properly certified.