Groups Offer Confidential Ride Home to Drinkers : Gearing Up for Safety on Prom Night

It’s prom time this weekend at Whittier High School, but the local flower and tuxedo rental shops aren’t the only ones gearing up for a big business.

The Southeast San Gabriel Valley Safe Rides in Whittier, which picks up teens too drunk to drive, is also expecting heavy demands for its service.

Fifty volunteers, ages 14 to 20, will be available Saturday from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. to answer hot lines, work citizens band radios and provide confidential rides for their peers who, because of alcohol or drugs, are in no condition to drive.

Besides Whittier High’s prom-goers, calls from weekend party-goers from California, Pioneer, La Serna and Los Altos high schools are expected as well. It should be a busy night, said Marla Draper, coordinator of the nonprofit program.

Draper, a Hacienda Heights volunteer, founded Safe Rides in October, 1985, to “save lives” and “address the problems of drinking and driving,” she said. Like the national groups Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Students Against Drunk Driving, Safe Rides does not condone teen drinking. However, it goes one step beyond the efforts of MADD and SADD in that it actually provides rides home for teen-agers.

Teen-Age Volunteers

Safe Rides operates out of the Whittier Boys and Girls Club on Greenleaf Street on Fridays, Saturdays and special holidays. Adults supervise and raise funds for equipment and gas, but teen-age volunteers do the rest.

The younger volunteers man phones while the older ones, who must possess a valid drivers license and clean traffic record, wait for assignments. When a request comes in on the hot line, (213) 698-RIDE, a volunteer takes down information, then dials the caller’s number to screen pranksters. If the person needs a lift within the boundaries of Whittier, Hacienda Heights, La Mirada and parts of La Habra, Safe Rides dispatches a two-person, co-ed team to the site.

The team drives the teen-agers home, no questions asked, and guarantees anonymity. At first, Draper said, few calls came in because no one trusted the promised confidentiality. But since starting, more than 400 rides have been provided, she said.

Typically, the caller is a friend or date of an inebriated teen, Draper said. But sometimes a baby-sitter, unable for some reason to get home, will phone. And once a stranded 14-year-old called from a gas station for help, Draper said, because “the police didn’t consider her situation an emergency.”

Busy During Holidays

On the average, Safe Rides gets four to five calls on Friday and two to three on Saturday, said Draper. But during New Year’s Eve, Christmas, football and prom seasons, four calls may come in each hour. If the caller lives outside the Safe Rides boundaries, the volunteers contact similar programs, such as Safe Rides Explorers Post 405 in Downey, sponsored by Downey High School and endorsed by the national Boy Scout organization.

Like the Southeast San Gabriel Valley Safe Rides program, Explorers Post 405’s service is run strictly by teen volunteers--80 from Downey High School and 25 from Warren High. In addition to possessing a valid drivers license and good traffic record, the Explorer drivers attend sessions on how to handle emergency situations.

Alice Yamada, Explorers Post 405 coordinator, said the program began last May after a school assembly featuring former New Jersey police officer David Toma, upon whose life the TV series “Baretta” was based.

“We knew we had (an alcohol) problem in our schools,” Yamada said. “There was an incident where one student who was drunk fell off a telephone wire (and died). And one of our athletes was involved in (an alcohol-related) hit-and-run accident. After the assembly, kids came forward. We began having raps.”

Confidentiality Assured

The raps led to the Safe Rides program, said Yamada, and parents began raising funds. The Downey YMCA offered its facilities, the Rotary Club purchased a phone and pledged to pay phone bills, and the Downey Amateur Hand Radio Group loaned a two-way radio. Also, the Kiwanis Club donated a videocassette recorder and the Wherehouse and Video Depot donated videos to occupy volunteers on slow nights.

“We had no calls at last year’s prom,” said Yamada, because “we were new. Nobody trusted us.” But word spread that Safe Rides did indeed provide confidential rides, and on New Year’s Eve, volunteers responded to 15 calls.

Yamada said she expects as many calls this prom season and hopes that students will take the Safe Rides Explorers Post hot line number, (213) 869-RIDE, along with their corsages and boutonnieres.

Explorers Post 405 operates Fridays and Saturdays from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. in Downey and parts of South Gate, Cerritos and Bellflower. Long Beach Explorers Post 208, in its first month of service, also gives rides to teen-agers who dial ICUSAFE, (213) 428-7233.