Thousands of Binghamton University students, most too drunk to drive themselves home, cram into taxicabs back to campus at the end of the night. But some cabs are safer than others.

Documents and passenger testimony show that one popular driver, Joseph Pistoia, has a record of falling asleep at the wheel, which has led to accidents — and to city authorities taking away his taxi license. Pistoia’s tendency to snooze while driving has earned him the nickname “Narcoleptic Joe” from some students, and “Sleepy Joe” from fellow cab drivers and local police officers. His New York State driver’s license was revoked for two years in 2001 because of too many tickets.

In 2003, the Binghamton City Clerk cited four accident reports, four police incident reports and 11 traffic citations over a two-year period to deny Pistoia’s request for a renewed license to operate within city limits.

In one particular accident, Pistoia’s 1995 Dodge van swerved out of its lane on Riverside Drive and struck an oncoming car head on. The other driver was shaken up enough to be taken to the hospital. Pistoia claimed he was avoiding a third car trying to pass him on the right; but a witness said there was no such vehicle, and the responding officer didn’t buy that excuse.

“Driver of [Vehicle 1, Pistoia’s taxi van] is known to police for poor driving record and falling asleep at the wheel. The possibility of a third vehicle passing him is unlikely,” the officer wrote in her report.

A Broome County Supreme Court decision supporting the city clerk’s denial summed up what the pages of police reports and court documents attest to: “Mr. Pistoia’s application for a taxicab driver’s permit was properly denied because the issuance of such a license would involve an unreasonable risk to the safety of members of the driving public and to those might ride in his taxi,” the decision read.

Since that decision, the city clerk, Eric S. Denk, has restored Pistoia’s taxi license — but for the 2005-2006 year, the license was restricted: Pistoia was only allowed to drive his taxi during the night shift, for a maximum of 58 hours per week over six days. Now Pistoia says his license is again unrestricted, and that he may drive his blue 1992 Toyota Previa van at any time.

‘… HE JUST STARTS DRIFTING OVER THE YELLOW LINE’

Pistoia, a 66-year-old with a wife and nine adult children, admitted to occasionally being sleepy at the wheel from working too hard. But he adamantly denied ever putting passengers’ lives in danger, saying he’s only fallen asleep six times, all at long red lights.

“I am a good driver as long as I don’t get stuck at those red lights at 3 o’clock in the morning. Honest, I have never, never fallen asleep while the car is in motion. I have never fallen asleep with people in my car.”

But scores of Binghamton students who have used his cab to get home from the bars or the Chenango Street bus depot would disagree. Almost every Bearcat has a friend or a friend’s friend who has taken a trip with “Narcoleptic Joe.” And a number of them were eager to share their stories about being in the car with him as he fell asleep — the van in motion the whole time.

“As he was driving me down Vestal Parkway, I noticed that he started drifting to the right and started nodding off while driving,” said Tzvi Furer, 20, a senior psychobiology major, of a ride he took with Pistoia around two years ago. Furor said he had to keep talking to Pistoia to make sure he didn’t hit the curb.

“A lot of the times, one of us would be up front trying to keep him awake on that long, dark stretch on the Vestal Parkway,” said senior biology major Jon Albright. “If you’re in the front, you know it’s your role to talk to him, keep him aware and awake. He’s not exactly the safest driver, but none of the cabbies really are.”

But still, Albright and his friends have taken Pistoia’s cab more than once. His earnest, talkative nature endears him to many of his student passengers. Indeed, in 2004 around 25 of them signed a petition declaring that he provided “qualified, dignified, and above all else safe transportation service.”

“He’s a good guy,” wrote one signer, Prashant Gupta, now 21 and a senior biology major. “I’ve heard stories about him falling asleep, but I’ve never seen him do that.”

And Elizabeth Klein, 20, another senior psychobiology major, said she trusts Pistoia and uses his self-owned cab service, Joseph’s Transportation, often. “I call him because he always picks up his phone and is reliable to get me back and forth,” she said.

But to Matt Rossie, an investigator with Binghamton’s New York State University Police, this loyalty is misplaced.

“I’ve dealt with him in the past, and students tend to come to his defense,” Rossie said. But “it’s a serious concern, because a driver who falls asleep while driving puts himself, his passengers and anyone else on the road in danger, similar to the way an intoxicated person does.”

That’s something to which Samantha Padula, a senior studying marketing, leadership and theater, can attest. When she was a freshman, she said, she and friends had taken Pistoia’s cab to then-hot spot Cheers on a Thursday night.

“We were driving and he [falls asleep and] just starts drifting over the yellow line, and the school bus was coming the other way,” Padula said, referring to the “drunk bus” that brought students downtown en masse.

“All I remember was looking up and seeing the headlights of the yellow school bus. He kind of notices, I guess, and yanks the car back into our actual lane,” she said.

Later, she had another, similar incident with Pistoia on the Vestal Parkway.

“I don’t know why I ever decided to get back in a cab with this man,” she said.