Teens Step Forward With Safe Rides

It’s 1:46 a.m. in the Bat Cave, the secret location for Safe Rides.

After four hours of watching videos, drinking soda, eating pizza and trying to sample all 39 flavors from a jar of jellybeans, the tired group of three teenage boys and three teenage girls prepares to call it a night.

Suddenly, the phone rings. Everyone becomes quiet.

“Hello, Safe Rides,” answers Kelly Twarowski, a junior at Canyon High School.

The caller, a 17-year-old boy, says he’s drunk and needs a ride home.

Colin MacNeil, a junior at Canyon High, and his girlfriend, Candice Crane, also a Canyon student, pinpoint the boy’s location on a giant map, grab a bucket that contains rubber gloves, a cellular phone, a blanket and a flashlight, and head to their car to make the final pickup on a Friday night.

Santa Clarita Valley Safe Rides was launched in December 1986 after the alcohol-related deaths of six local teenagers in 16 months. Since then, it has provided more than 7,000 rides for young people who don’t want to get into a car with an intoxicated driver, or don’t trust themselves to drive.

It has grown to more than 80 students from Canyon, Hart, Saugus and Valencia high schools who volunteer as drivers, navigators and dispatchers.

There are Safe Rides programs scattered in cities and on college campuses nationwide. One of the largest is based in south Orange County, involving more than 300 volunteers from 10 high schools.

At least 14 such programs operated in Los Angeles County in the 1980s, but liability insurance concerns put most of them out of business. But the Santa Clarita program, which serves an area with one of the county’s highest incidence of drunk driving arrests, remains strong.

Authorities and other supporters dismiss criticism that Safe Rides enables minors to drink, noting that since 1988 there have been no teenage deaths in the Santa Clarita Valley related to teenagers driving under the influence.

“This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Shapiro, who spent an evening observing the program. “When I was this age, I was out partying. I wouldn’t give up my Friday, Saturday night to help other kids. This is awesome.”

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There were 2,210 alcohol-related traffic deaths of people ages 15 to 20 in 1998 in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Santa Clarita Valley Safe Rides is making an impact, participants say, by offering free rides home on Friday and Saturday nights to impaired teenagers who don’t want to endanger themselves or others.

“You make a difference, especially among your friends,” MacNeil said. “It’s pretty much a given that most high school students who like to have a good time are drinking. A lot of them don’t want their parents to know. Some nights you get a call or two. Others, it’s ringing off the hook. Maybe of the couple nights I’ve worked, I’ve saved a life or two.”

Liability concerns forced Mothers Against Drunk Driving to drop sponsorship of the Safe Rides programs in the San Fernando Valley in the late 1980s, said Tina Pasco, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of MADD. The Santa Clarita chapter turned to the Boy Scouts of America for its liability insurance.

“I still believe kids need a ride even though they know the drinking age in California is 21,” Pasco said. “MADD just can’t be involved.”

Enter Penny Upton of Canyon Country, whose leadership and commitment helped persuade community leaders that Safe Rides is needed.

“People say, ‘Aren’t you just enabling them [to drink]?’ We have to deal with this immediately,” said Upton, who cofounded the Santa Clarita program. “Let’s get them off the road, so they don’t kill . . . my neighbor or myself.”

Upton said those getting rides are promised confidentiality, which means no information is passed on to parents, schools or the police.

The Santa Clarita sheriff’s station ranks second only to Lancaster in Los Angeles County in total arrests for driving under the influence. Last year, Lancaster reported 693 arrests and Santa Clarita 559.

“There are a lot of people who like to drink and drive here,” Shapiro said. “Most of the deputies at this station live in the [Santa Clarita] Valley, and we’re trying to protect our family and friends. We will arrest drunk drivers.”

MacNeil, who like more than half of the Safe Rides volunteers is a campus athlete, has a 4.3 grade-point average and wants to become a doctor.

Volunteering for Safe Rides will look good on his college applications, but the motive behind MacNeil’s participation is far more personal.

His father, Donald, a former lieutenant in the Glendale Police Department, was critically injured by a drunk driver while on duty in 1992. The driver ran a stop sign, crashed into his car and was killed. He suffered an injured hip and kidney and has had 12 surgeries since the accident.

“It was a near-death experience,” said Colin MacNeil, who was 9 at the time of the accident. “When I look back on it, I say, ‘Wow, I almost lost my father.’ ”

To have athletes volunteer for Safe Rides is an encouraging sign of acceptance, Upton said. Athletes are among the most visible students on campuses. Their participation reinforces the message that teenagers should not be drinking and driving.

“I’ve picked up a couple of football players that I’ve known and played with,” said MacNeil, who plays middle linebacker and fullback. “They’re kind of surprised to see me, but I tell them what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.”

Drivers and navigators are advised not to be judgmental when speaking to passengers. No lectures are given, no opinions offered.

Each teenager who is picked up is asked a series of informational questions, none more important than the final one: “What would you have done if Safe Rides didn’t give you a ride home?”

“That’s when you can tell if you’ve actually helped someone out and maybe even saved a life,” MacNeil said.

It’s up to the driver to decide if a passenger should be picked up. If there are any safety concerns, they are expected to decline.

MacNeil said that most of the passengers he has dealt with have been respectful, but several weeks ago a teenager got out of the car at a stoplight, putting MacNeil’s composure to the test.

“You know what? If you don’t get back into the car, we’re going to leave you here,” he warned the teenager.

“He got back into the car,” MacNeil said. “You have to be very patient. You have to learn how to deal with people who aren’t in a good situation. You have to help people out and get them out of trouble.”

Heather Wood, a senior at Canyon who has been a Safe Rides volunteer for three years, said she is convinced the program works.

“There are some people who are going to drink no matter what you tell them,” she said. “This is a way to make sure if they do that, they can make the smart decision not to drive and not to endanger anyone else.”

It’s 2:20 a.m., and MacNeil and Crane have returned to the office after their final pickup. They learned that their 17-year-old passenger was more impaired from smoking marijuana than from drinking. He was carrying a skateboard and was in no condition to cruise down Soledad Canyon Road.

After vacuuming the carpet, dumping the empty soda cans and straightening the office furniture, the group heads home.

It has been a slow night, with only three pickups in four hours.

But no one thinks it was a wasted night.

“We feel we can give something back to our community and make it safer,” Crane said. “People trust us. They put their lives in our hands.”

Santa Clarita Valley Safe Rides can be reached at (661) 259-6330.