CAPITAL REGION Free rides ensure safe trip home New Year’s Eve revelers don’t have to risk drinking, driving BY PAM ALLEN Gazette Reporter
If New Year’s Eve finds you with a few too many cocktails under your belt, local authorities want you to find your way to a phone instead of your car. There’s no excuse to get behind the wheel after a night of drinking, especially when the rides are free, said Lenny Crouch, deputy coordinator of Albany County’s STOPDWI Program. Several organizations will offer free rides home to revelers who are out celebrating during one of the three biggest drinking holidays of the year. New Year’s Eve falls just behind St. Patrick’s Day, which is the second-biggest drinking day of the year. First is Halloween, which claimed the unfortunate title in recent years as it became more and more popular for college students to visit bars dressed in costume, Crouch said. “Safe Rides,” a program sponsored by Albany and Schenectady STOP-DWI, will provide free transportation home for all partiers. The rides are contracted through area taxi and cab companies and through he use of leased vans, and paid with fines collected through each county’s STOP-DWI programs. Unlike last New Year’s Eve when there were no blanket DWI patrols in Albany County, police will be out in force this year, Crouch said. “The key here is that this one coincides with the ride program. It would be like adding insult to injury if you get arrested,” said Crouch, who lost his son to an alcohol-related crash in 2001. The number for the program, which runs from 10 tonight to 4 a.m. Tuesday, is 720-8100. Last year, the program accommodated 711 calls and 1,095 people, and cost about $10,000 to run. Schenectady’s program will be available from 9 tonight through 6 a.m. Tuesday. The number is 374-4101. Last year, about 1,000 Schenectady County residents took advantage of the ride program. It cost about $5,000 to fund last year’s ride program. Both programs will pick up people from private homes or bars in their respective counties, and drive them home. Schenectady’s program will take passengers home anywhere in the county. Albany’s program will not take people to the southernmost portions of the county. Schenectady’s program will take people to their homes outside the county, but the passengers will be responsible for paying the fare after the Schenectady County line. The goal of Schenectady’s program is to get through the New year’s holiday without a DWI arrest, said Susan Savage, chairwoman of the Schenectady County legislature. Last year, there were three DWI arrests in the county, two of whom had blood-alcohol levels more than three times the legal limit, Savage said. Albany County had four DWI arrests during the same time. On average, a one-day blanket patrol nets 21 drunk-driving arrests, Crouch said. He credited the “Safe Rides” program with the smaller number of DWI arrests over the New Year’s holiday. “I think that clearly the numbers show that when someone is offered a free ride, they take advantage of it,” Crouch said. The service is not available to shuttle people from party to party, or from unrelated activities such as shopping excursions or movies, authorities said. The Martin, Harding & Mazzotti law firm in Niskayuna also will offer free rides. For the seventh year in a row, the company will pay cab fare home for anyone in Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga and Rensselaer counties. This year, the law firm’s ride program was extended from Christmas Eve to Dec. 31, said attorney Dan Dagostino. Several hundred are served by the program, he said. The number is 1-800-529-1010. “No questions will be asked,” Dagostino said. The law firm offers the free rides during holidays because it handles a lot of cases that involve drunk drivers. “To be frank, it’s one case we’d like to see a lot less of,” he said. For the 24th year in a row, The Capital District Transportation Authority will offer free rides tonight to customers on all of its routes from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. All 330 Stewart’s shops will offer free coffee from 6 p.m. until closing. The owners of the Rusty Nail on Route 9 in Clifton Park and Bentley’s Tavern in Malta will shuttle patrons home after an evening of celebrations, manager Joell Ringwood said. A tavern employee will drive people home as needed, she said. “We want people to come out and have a wonderful time, get home safe and be here next year,” Ringwood said. The New York State Thruway Authority will offer free coffee to motorists at all 27 travel plazas between the hours of 11 p.m. tonight and 7 a.m. Tuesday.
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BIGK75
December 31, 2007, 5:29am
Guest User
If you're planning on going out tonight, please do it safely. In fact, if you're like most people nowadays and carry a cell phone, can I make a suggestion?
Take the phone # offered above 374-4101 or 1-800-529-1010 and program it into your phone, giving it the name of "A Safe Ride Home."
First of all, that will push it to the top of the list of phone #s in your phone book. Also, when you go to try to call someone, it'll give you a reminder of who/what you should be calling about.
You're always thinking BK. Good tip! Not that I'll need it since I'm not going anywhere. No big deal to me.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I'd like to thank everyone who has participated in this forum this year, and our visitors that have checked in to see what we're all about.
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