Jon Wyatt




Safe Rides is up and running and helping keep teens safe

Program also serves those who are with someone who's drinking

By Kara Chalmers

On graduation night last June, Jon Wyatt, 16, drove the American Red Cross Safe Ride van to a party to pick up someone he knew. The person was so drunk that Jon had to buckle him up himself.

"It felt good," Wyatt said, " because I knew that way they wouldn't drive themselves and possibly get hurt. In situations like that the program will prevent drinking and driving."

But preventing someone from driving while intoxicated is just one of the aims of the Safe Rides program. Teens who are stranded because their driver is drinking, who are uncomfortable on a date or who just have car trouble can also call for rides, no questions asked.

The American Red Cross program was expanded to Saratoga and parts of Los Gatos last year when Betty Morse, mother of a senior and a sophomore at Saratoga High School, read a newspaper article about the Safe Rides program in Palo Alto.

"I read about [the program] and it struck a chord in me," Morse said. "I asked my boys and they said, 'We can't start this,' and I said, 'Well, we can at least look into it.' "

And they did, along with eight of her sons' friends.

Morse said she and the students attended countless Youth Commission, Public Safety Commission and City Council meetings last year to try to get support for the program they wished to expand to Saratoga. Finally, the city agreed to pay for gas, the phone line, printing costs and the use of the facility, the Warner Hutton House on Fruitvale Avenue. The Red Cross takes care of everything else, including the van and training for the volunteers.

By high school graduation night last year, a night known nationwide for drinking-related car accidents, the Safe Rides program had arrived in Saratoga. The West Valley Safe Rides was established, reaching the first of many goals.

Now, one year after the idea popped into Morse's head, the program is up and running every weekend.

"We're all impassioned about it; we love it," Morse said of herself and the other student and parent volunteers.

West Valley Safe Rides provides a confidential and free ride home for any teen stranded within its boundaries--Saratoga, Monte Sereno and parts of Los Gatos (excluding Highway 17 in Los Gatos). Each Friday and Saturday night from 10 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., volunteers field toll-free calls at a command station set up in the Warner Hutton House, where there is always at least one adult present. A pair of teen volunteers, one male and one female, pick up callers in the van, and both must be certified in CPR and first aid.



Betty Morse




The program gives an average of 10 rides per weekend, according to Morse, and often there is more than one person picked up at a time. Teens are driven directly to their homes, and volunteers are taught to recognize if a teen needs medical attention.

Volunteer Kelly Mathew, a senior, said drinking-related car accidents involving his peers opened his eyes to the extent of the problem of teen drinking and driving. He said he supports Safe Rides since it directly helps his friends and his peers to be safe and make the right decisions. In terms of drinking he said, "People will do that one way or another; we're just trying to provide a safe ride."

The first time he volunteered, John Finnegan, a sophomore, picked up two girls who called. They were embarrassed, because their driver was drunk.

"Technically, we saved those people's lives," he said. "They could have been in an accident. [Safe Rides] is not just for those who drink, it's also for those people who are with someone who is drinking."

Student coordinators like Wyatt, Mathew and Finnegan really run the whole show. It is up to them to find three or four friends to work through the night with them. And Lynda Davis, program coordinator from the Red Cross, specifically trains coordinators in leadership and problem-solving skills.

The initial group of 10 students, all boys, became the first student coordinators, and were trained with the Palo Alto Safe Rides group last year.

"The coordinators have given up a lot of weekends over the past year," Morse said. "They're all committed. They're incredible. I think they feel it's their baby."

The meeting on Oct.13 marked the first official West Valley coordinator training night. By 7:30 p.m. the Warner Hutton House was filled with youths wanting to learn how they can help solve the problem of drinking and driving, the No. 1 killer of teens, according to the Red Cross. The Red Cross' Davis taught a refresher course in CPR and first aid, and trained the new crop of coordinators in the Safe Ride way.

Now, there are about 30 coordinators, and about half of them are girls.

Morse's long-term goal is to expand the program to serve all of Los Gatos, Campbell, Cupertino and maybe even further. The West Valley program will be reevaluated in May.

"Our plan is to be a little more all-inclusive but you have to start somewhere," she said.

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The West Valley Safe Rides Program needs more volunteers, both parents and students. Call Lynda Davis at the American Red Cross for more information: 408.577.2014.

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