As Chauffeurs for Drunk Friends, Teen-Agers Contribute Their Drive

Brushing aside criticism that they encourage teen-age drinking, operators of a Reseda-based safety group stepped up efforts Saturday to drive young drunks off San Fernando Valley streets.

At the Navy’s Reserve Training Center in Encino, 52 newly recruited drivers for Valley Safe Rides underwent a seven-hour training program on how to take intoxicated high school students home safely from weekend parties.

Tipsy teen-agers get a free ride--and a promise that the program’s drivers will not turn them in to their parents.

Young Volunteers

Teen-age dispatchers and drivers use their own cars. They are unpaid, although gasoline expenses are covered by community donations, and liability insurance is provided by the Boy Scouts of America.

“The law in this state says you have to be 21 to drink, but we’re dealing with the reality that kids are partying Friday and Saturday nights,” said Barbara Bloomberg, who helped organize the Valley ride program three years ago after her 16-year-old son was killed by a drunk driver.

Since then, more than 3,000 intoxicated youths from the West Valley have received rides home, said Bloomberg, a Tarzana resident who is president of the Los Angeles chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Chief Cause of Death

“We are not encouraging kids to drink. But we cannot keep our heads in the sand. Drunk drivers are the No. 1 cause of deaths in their age group,” she said.

Most of the 52 teen-agers at Saturday’s training session said a friend’s death was also the chief reason they were there. The new recruits will join the Valley ride group’s 45 current members in time to help out during this season’s school proms and graduation parties.

Six 11th-graders from private Oakwood School in North Hollywood had signed up as a memorial to a classmate killed Feb. 24 after being hit by a drunk driver, said 16-year-old Eric Wasserman.

“After she died, people at school were crying and walking around in a stupor,” Wasserman said. “We had to do something. . . . I hope to recruit more kids for this from my school.”

Jeremy Bauman, 17, a North Hollywood High School senior, said he became a driver both for the Reseda program and a newly organized Safe Rides program in the East Valley area after his best friend died because of a drunk driver.

‘I Loved Him’

“He was someone I looked up to a whole lot, someone I wanted to be like,” Bauman said. “I loved him a lot. I’m doing this for his memory.”

Valley Safe Rides President Elizabeth Rodgers, 18, said she volunteered because “friends of friends, and brothers and sisters of friends” had been killed in accidents caused by drinking drivers.

“I know of 12 people who have died. It’s amazing. It’s too much,” said Rodgers, who lives in Encino and is a senior at the private Buckley School in Sherman Oaks.

The Safe Rides drivers travel in pairs and keep in touch with their dispatcher through a walkie-talkie, said Steve Kahlenberg, 17, a senior at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys who has worked with the program for three years.

Kahlenberg, of Encino, said dispatchers try to weed out callers who show no sign of alcohol or drug use but who merely want a free taxi service--or who want a ride from one party to another. He said he identifies himself to parents of his drunken riders as “a friend”--not as a member of an anti-drunk-driving group.

Phone Numbers

Officials said rides from Safe Rides groups can be requested in the East Valley at (818) 842-7930; West Valley at (818) 701-RIDE; Calabasas at (818) 888-RIDE; Conejo Valley at (805) 373-RIDE, and Santa Clarita Valley at (805) 259-6330.

Saturday’s session included films about drunk driving and a talk by California Highway Patrol Officer Kenn Rosenberg.

Michael Leeds, a Studio City psychologist, outlined some precautions. He urged them to refuse to pick up other youngsters who are “severely intoxicated” by either drugs or alcohol because they may be dangerous.

Talking of the young volunteers, Leeds said: “These kids are responding to a social phenomenon. . . . Teen-agers are dying in droves because of drunk drivers.”