Northwestern administrators decomissioned 17 vans about two weeks ago after National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cautioned that the 15-passenger vans were prone to roll over under certain conditions.

Chris Johnson, NU’s director of risk management, said that although there hadn’t been any crashes involving the vans at NU, administrators wanted to stop using the large vans to prevent an accident.

“We haven’t had any accidents, but we don’t want to take that chance,” Johnson said. “We’re being proactive here.”

The NTHSA reported that vans carrying more than 10 passengers were three times more likely to roll over than other light trucks and vans on the road.

Federal law prohibits the sale of 15-passenger vans for school-related transportation for high school-aged and younger students, but colleges are still able to use the vans.

But Johnson said NU students were prohibited from driving the vans at the beginning of the year after there had been enough problems with the vans at other universities to warrant concern at NU.

In the meantime, Johnson said students have been provided with minivans, with NU paying the difference in cost. But Johnson said the university will stop footing the bill in the fall.

Kathy Chan, former co-programming director for Alternative Spring Break, said the new policy has been inconvenient for her group. She said ASB members had to travel to their sites in two minivans this year, making communication difficult.

“We’ve had to ask our participants to volunteer walkie talkies and cell phones,” said Chan, a Weinberg senior.

“The cell phones weren’t very good because they incurred heavy charges, and in areas where you got bad reception, they wouldn’t work,” she said.

Chan said that although she was glad administrators were looking out for students’ safety, ASB was going to have to raise more money to cover the site costs as well as the new transportation costs.

“It hurts us a lot – there’s no way of getting around that,” she said. “But I understand the university needs to do this for insurance and safety reasons.”