Saratoga, California Since 1955
News
|
to get a safe ride home By Kate Carter A new program to give options to youths looking for a ride home may not be quite what Saratogans need, according to one expert. But Betty Morse, founder of local nonprofit Bay Area SafeRides, said she will welcome any help newcomer RideHome can provide, as well as any help for her own program that she can get from the community. "My objective is to make sure everybody's safe," Morse said. "I don't want to see any more young people dying. There's a huge need out there." RideHome is a Southern California-based start-up company that last month began providing taxicab rides to its prepaid members who needed a way to get home safely. The company charges its members a yearly membership fee of $19.95, as well as a $30 charge for each ride reservation. It is planning to expand nationally throughout the summer, and it has already begun to provide service in Saratoga, said spokeswoman Carrie Leber. Morse, however, provided similar services for free to youths within the Saratoga, Los Gatos and Monta Vista high school jurisdictions beginning in 1999. SafeRides operated out of the city's Warner Hutton House teen center until last November and used cab rides only as a back-up to its regular program of having teens field calls from and pick up youths in need. SafeRides would dispatch cabs to pick up teens when its volunteer staff was swamped with calls, she said, and its telephone message referred callers to two local cab companies when the program wasn't staffed. (SafeRides was staffed Friday and Saturday nights after 10 p.m., September through June.) The program would then pay for any cab pickup made through the program, with charges closely monitored to prevent overuse by any one individual, she said. However, there never were many charges for the service, Morse said. "That program doesn't work very well," she said. "In theory, it's really great, but it doesn't actually work." Most teens in Saratoga, she said, either don't want to get in a cab with someone who is impaired, without the supervision of SafeRide staffers, or don't want to wait the typical 45 minutes it takes for a cab to get to a location in the hillside city. Youths who are either too much under the influence to drive, whose driver is too much under the influence to drive or who have been left stranded without a ride or in an unsafe driving situation, are often uncomfortable even with the help of SafeRide adults, she said, and refuse the service. For those reasons, Morse isn't sure that RideHome will meet the needs of Saratoga's teens. However, right now it may be their only choice. SafeRides hasn't been operating for more than six months, when it ran out of money. The program began with the support of the San Jose chapter of the American Red Cross, which provided a van, insurance and a part-time director. It operated that way, with the help of the city and the blessing of local law enforcement agencies, through the 1999-00 school year. However, the Red Cross pulled its support because it didn't want to focus so closely on the Saratoga area, Morse said. Morse and her team were able to get the program incorporated as its own nonprofit organization and continue operating using grant money and other support through the 2000-01 school year. But running the program left no time for soliciting more money, and when the money was gone the program had to stop, she said. Morse and program director Lynda Davis were able to secure a $25,000 grant from Santa Clara County's Traffic Safety Community Network earlier this spring, Morse said. The program also received support from Los Gatos' Community Against Substance Abuse. Morse would like to see it back in operation soon, but she needs some help from the community to make it happen. "I don't want to be in the driver's seat anymore," said Morse, the mother of two sons who have graduated from Saratoga High School. "I would love to get it up and running by September, but I can't do it by myself." In the meantime, youths can either use the RideHome program or call themselves a cab. The RideHome program, which Leber said uses Yellow Cab Company, Inc. in Saratoga, will take youths "to anywhere, from anywhere," within reason - from San Francisco back to Saratoga, for example. Members, who are issued a keychain and dog tag, call the toll-free RideHome number and speak to a dispatcher who asks for their member number, which is printed on the keychain and dog tag. The member then tells the dispatcher where the individual is, and the dispatcher verifies that the person has rides remaining in his or her RideHome account. If not, Leber said, the dispatcher can charge the $30 ride fee at that time to the credit card number on the account. Then the dispatcher asks the member which of the three predetermined drop-off locations he or she would like to be taken to, and sends a cab to make the run. RideHome also provides free travel in cases of emergency to medical facilities. Leber said she doesn't expect the cabs would take more than 10 minutes to pick up the teen, and she says an advantage is that it is run by professionals who call the teen's destination to make sure he or she has arrived safely. "The whole program is set up to be like peer-pressure resistance," Leber said. Just making the decision to call for help to get home is the most important part of any program like RideHome or SafeRides, Morse said. By making that call, a teenager shows a willingness to take care of his or her safety and that of his or her companions and other drivers on the road. "The real part of the program is they learn not to drink and drive," Morse said. "There's a lesson to be learned." To reach SafeRides' message, call 408-868-1272. To learn more about SafeRides and to volunteer, email bayareasaferide@aol.com or morsent@pacbell.net. For more information about Ride Home, call 866-331-7433 or visit www.ridehome.net. |
Feedback, or story ideas for the Saratoga News?
(Close this Window to go back to our home page.)
Copyright © SVCN, LLC. Maintained by GoGuys, Inc.