By DAVID DUPONT
BG independent News
Sitting by the telephone on New Year’s Eve sounds like the set up for a sad song. That may be where Sandy Wiechman of the Wood County Safe Communities Coalition will spend her evening, and that’s good news for the community.
For the fourth New Year’s Eve the council is offering drivers who have consumed a little too much liquid holiday cheer a free ride home in Bowling Green and its immediate environs. They just have to call 419-823-7765.
This year the theme is “swallow your pride, call for a ride.” More than pride is at stake, though, according to Wiechman and others speaking at a press event Thursday at Thayer Family Dealership.
Captain B. Gene Smith, of the Ohio Highway Patrol
Captain B. Gene Smith, of the Ohio Highway Patrol said state troopers, city police, and sheriff’s deputies will all be out intent on arresting impaired drivers. For those who choose to drive drunk getting arrested may be the best outcome. Far worse, would be a fatal crash, killing the drunk driver or an innocent party.
Far better will be not make a plan to get home safely, he advised.
Bowling Green Mayor Dick Edwards said drivers should think of their own safety and the safety of other people they may put in harm’s way by driving drunk.
No one, Wiechman said, wants a law enforcement officer knocking on their door on New Year’s to tell them a loved one has been killed or is seriously injured.
The service is available from 11 p.m. New Year’s Eve through 4 a.m. New Year’s morning, but Wiechman said she’ll start answering the telephone earlier, and is committed to keeping the service running until the last person needing a ride is safely home.
Instead, the safety council is urging people to call 419-823-7765. The council will have three vans, on loan from People Centered Services in Perrysburg, waiting to pick them up and drive them home.
She said she also gets calls from downtown bars, who have be strong supporters of the program, and from Taco Bell. The city’s tow companies have also worked with the council. In the past, the companies donated the money to rent vans, before People Centered Services donated their vehicles. Tow truck drivers will call if they encounter someone needing a ride.
Wiechman said that the arrangement with People Centered Services started last year, and she was pleased when the agency’s new director Nikol Kinnersley continued it this year.
Two people go out with each van for the safety of the volunteers and the passengers. One volunteer gathers the demographic data that the council needs to report in compliance with its $50,000 grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That grant funds council projects throughout the year.
Last year the free ride service provided rides to 200 people. That was up from each of the previous years, 124 in 2013 and 140 in 2014. But the number that’s most important is there were no fatal accidents. Wiechman believes the free ride service is helping making the streets of Bowling Green safer.
Wiechman said the council will use a third van this year given the forecast for rain. The passenger are mostly between the age of 19 and 26, and typically a van picks up a group of revelers. And most don’t have to wait for more than a few minutes.
Riding in those vans, Wiechman said, will be more comfortable than riding in the back of a cruiser wearing silver bracelets.
