Like everything else in our lives, if we help you plan your nights ahead of time, we can help you avoid drinking and driving. Safe Rides Unlimited (SRU) is a charitable 501 (c) (3) organization that provides realistic and effective safe ride solutions to college students and the general public!

A profile of our 501 (c) (3) charity and its realistic approach to preventing drunk driving.

Human behavior can be hard to change, especially when alcohol is involved. There are jobs tied to the creation and serving of alcoholic beverages. Many people enjoy alcohol socially at parties, with meals, and at bars, clubs, and events. Most people do not abuse alcohol, but there are those who are susceptible to addiction. Then, there is the greatest danger — getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle while over the legal limit. Terrible tragedies can result from drunk driving, yet it can be an insidious thing to prevent.

Until Safe Rides Unlimited came along, most options for drunk driving prevention were punitive in nature and ineffective as a result. The Safe Rides model is based on a better concept — recognize that people are going to go out and enjoy themselves and then reward them for not driving. Our 501 (c) (3) charity encourages people to plan their evenings out through Safe Rides. By making a meager per-person, tax deductible contribution (the cost of a typical cover charge), groups of five or more can secure a round-trip Safe Ride in a limousine or other luxury vehicle, to member clubs, bars, and restaurants, as well as to concerts, sporting events, and other special outings. What’s more, booking through Safe Rides means that the group will receive VIP red carpet treatment upon arrival at their destination. In most cases, that means avoiding long lines and cover charges.  Details on using Safe Rides can be found in the Safe Riders section of the web site.  Suffice it to say, this is a win-win proposition for everyone involved.

Explore the Safe Rides experience. Plan ahead for a fantastic night of fun with your friends. In the process, you’ll be making the roads a lot safer for yourself and others.

Board of Advisors:

Amanat M. Sattar | Founder

Amanat Mohib (Moe) Sattar discovered his entrepreneurial skills at a very young age. At 13, he established a food-serving network at his family’s business. At 20, he established a web-based business serving the needs of club goers.

Through his dealings with the hospitality industry, Mr. Sattar recognized early on that there is a serious need to provide safety for bar/club goers, to teach responsibility about drinking, and to not mix drinking and driving. It became a passion of his life when Mr. Sattar lost two of his friends, both of whom were killed in drunken driving accidents.

He founded Safe Rides Unlimited a 501 (c) (3) organization to provide safe rides to students. He purchased one 15-person van and started personally going to college campuses and providing round trip safe rides to students that were going out to a bar or club.

Mr. Sattar was so passionate about preventing drunken driving tragedies that he would spend hours every night waiting on college campuses to deter students from drinking and driving. The first week he provided round trip safe rides to 6 people.  The next week the number jumped to 19, reaffirming Mr. Sattar’s belief that if people were provided with real options as alternatives to driving drunk they would use these options. The idea and efforts of Mr. Sattar were so genuine that the students took notice and started spreading the word amongst their peers. Based upon the support of the student communities across NJ, Mr. Sattar opened his Safe Ride services to the general public. Since than, Safe Rides Unlimited has become an extremely effective organization. The new non-profit prides itself on providing realistic safe ride solutions to over 800 people every week, keeping 800 plus potential drunk drivers off our NJ roads.

Today the services Mr. Sattar started with one van are being requested and Safe Rides Unlimited is in the process of launching all across the country. In 2009, Safe Rides Unlimited under the care of Mr. Sattar will start offering its services to the student communities, military bases, and the general public in Florida, Virginia, Arizona, California, and Connecticut.

The effects of Safe Rides Unlimited are far reaching. The organization started by Mr. Sattar out of necessity has become a very important part of the NJ economy. During any given week, Safe Rides Unlimited through its network of transportation company and hospitality industry affiliates creates over 50 part time jobs. Safe Rides Unlimited also helps the local economy through the taxes that are paid by local limousine companies that become part of the Safe Rides network. Bars/clubs are benefiting by reducing their operating liabilities and developing repeat business.

Mr. Sattar is extremely humbled by the trust and respect shown to him by the people that use Safe Rides. He has pledged to grow the services until every state has a similar realistic alternative to offer its residents.

In May of 2009, Mr. Sattar was honored by the State of NJ with a Joint Resolution appreciating his services to the communities across the state.

Wasif S. Imam

Wasif S. Imam has over 35 years of progressive responsibility and expertise in developing financial strategies, business planning, and closing successful merger and acquisition business deals. He is a founding board member of Safe Rides Unlimited (SRU), a non-profit organization headquartered in Pine Brook, New Jersey.

He was Chief Financial Officer of MarketXT Holdings Corporation from 1998 to 2004 located in New York City and over 35 locations all around United States and England. MarketXT Holdings Corporation was formerly known as Tradescape Corporation, the third largest day-trading firm conducting electronic trades in equities on all the major US stock exchanges including NASDAQ. He was instrumental in attracting a major capital infusion into the Corporation in 1999 from Softbank of Japan. He played a key role in the merger and sale of Tradescape Corporation’s three subsidiaries to E*Trade Financial Group for $ 280 million in 2002.

Prior to that, he was one of the four founding partners of Potomac Associates International Ltd., a consulting firm headquartered in Washington D.C with three overseas offices in Japan, Malaysia, and Pakistan. He has brought in several major international projects into the firm and arranged cross-border financing for the projects in the areas of health-care, agriculture, and manufacturing/engineering through his global relationships, both in the financial industry and the government sector.

Mr. Imam in 1992 conducted successful negotiations in Tokyo with top Japanese government officials and business leaders to restructure foreign debt of a Latin American country with Japan. He was at the time Senior Vice-President, Corporate Finance, for Berkeley Securities, Inc., an equity and bond securities trading firm at Wall Street. He participated in and successfully completed five IPOs for the firm.

Mr. Imam spent almost 20 years with PepsiCo, Inc. and held senior level positions in the Finance department of the Company from 1967 to 1986. For ten years (1976-1986), he was the Chief Financial Officer of PepsiCo (Japan) Ltd. in Tokyo, subsequent to his transfer from PepsiCo’s world headquarters in Purchase, NY. He was responsible for the financial management of PepsiCo’s North Pacific Region covering Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan, a $300 million Pepsi operation at the time. He managed and supervised 3 Controllers, 1 EDP manager, 1 Personnel and Office manager, and an overall staff of 25 spread over three countries of PepsiCo’s North Pacific Region headquartered in Tokyo.

He helped establish the first PepsiCo plant in Shen Zhen, across Hong Kong. Following this model, PepsiCo established several additional Pepsi bottling plants in mainland China. He raised for PepsiCo $ 100 million in Tokyo through innovative yen financing covering foreign exchange exposure at the lowest possible cost to the Company.

Mr. Imam graduated in 1962 from Karachi University in Pakistan and earned a B.A. degree in Accounting and Auditing. He received his MBA in Business Management and Finance in 1967 from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rutherford, NJ.

Mr. Imam is a proud father of two married children and has five adorable grandchildren

Jeffrey C. Davis

Jeffrey C. Davis has more than 40 years of experience and successful results encompassing domestic and international business, consulting, government service, academic appointments, and not for profit enterprises. His consulting company has provided technical and other writing services, strategic planning, marketing and sales, financial advice, international public relations, promotion, project development and trade services to companies, organizations, and countries.

During President Ronald Reagan’s Administration he was invited on a Special Trade Mission to Saudi Arabia and Algeria sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce and The White House. He represented the American business sector on behalf of the U.S. Government at the Council of Europe Conference in Strasbourg, France. He also created, planned, organized and implemented the Friendship Forest Park Program in Algeria on behalf of the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Forest Service, and the American people.

Mr. Davis was a Senior Consultant to Hill and Knowlton, Inc., working out of the Seattle, Washington and Washington, DC offices. One of his several assignments was as a member of the Free Kuwait Committee, a domestic and international campaign established to assist President Bush and the Allies during the Gulf War.

While living in Malaysia and Vietnam he arranged financing as well as technical and project management services (through a large, European construction firm) for a major cement plant project development program in Vietnam; researched and wrote an extensive Marketing Plan for a physician group in the U.S. interested in introducing state-of-the-art medical technology and non-invasive cardiovascular health care services to the Asian marketplace; and arranged for a sizable investment and private sector financing for the inventors of a Thin Flat Matrix/CRT Monitor Display product.

During the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Mr. Davis’s consulting activities included: a bold agricultural wheat growing farm project in the desert in North Africa; organizing a significant oil cargo shipment for a U.S company and a member country of OPEC; writing the Marketing Plan for a U.S. real estate company responsible for an industrial, commercial and residential project in China; completing a Feasibility Study and Foreign Recruitment Program for a U.S. health care company; securing a contract with a major U.S. Port for a Dutch company to develop a state-of-the-art Navigational Safety Model Program; arranging for and participating in high-level briefings for a European company with U.S. Department of Defense officials relating to former Soviet Union energy issues; initiating and completing the Consular Office consolidation program for Kobe/Osaka, Japan; managing the advertising campaign for the largest Ford automobile dealership in Northern California; and implementing the first pre-paid mental health care program in America.

Mr. Davis worked for the California Legislature, and was responsible for the analysis and reporting of the Welfare, Medicaid, and Medicare budgets and related legislation. His appointment as Special Assistant to Governor Ronald Reagan included research, speech writing, contributions to the Series of Creative Studies, and special project assignments. He was appointed by the Governor as the Assistant Director of the California State Department of Social Welfare, the second largest department in the State Government.

Mark Paul

Mr. Paul was born September 1960 in the city of Paterson, NJ and currently resides in the town of Fairlawn, NJ.  Mark got his start in the hospitality industry at the age of 28 as a bartender/ bouncer.  He quickly rose to become the manager at Shannon’s Place in Elmwood Park, NJ.  Mark became very popular with his customers as a man of integrity and one who treated his customers with extreme respect and honesty. Mr. Paul’s business ethics soon provided him with a following of his loyal customers who encouraged him to take the next step and open his own night club.

In 1995, Mr. Paul decided after careful thought process to purchase his first night club in the town of Wallington, NJ.  Mark continued to develop a name for himself and his nightclub by providing entertainment and service that was unmatched at the time at any other venue.

He successfully mastered the restaurant and night club businesses. Soon after, he got involved with one of NJ’s upstart clubs.  His success is a direct result of his need to provide the highest level of service to his customers or as he calls them his “guests”.  In order to make sure his guests did not have to drive drunk, he started searching for new and effective ideas and services.

Mr. Paul was introduced to Safe Rides Unlimited in the summer of 2006 while searching for a way to prevent his customers from drinking and driving.  He quickly saw the effectiveness of Safe Rides Unlimited and became a loyal supporter.  He generously donated his time and experience to help Safe Rides achieve its goals of providing realistic and effective alternatives to drinking and driving.  He provided the organization with valuable knowledge of the nightlife/hospitality industry. He offered his help without looking for anything in return.  Mr. Paul’s time, efforts, and experience have helped to make Safe Rides Unlimited an organization that currently prevents over 500 people from drinking and driving every week.  It was only a matter of time before Mr. Paul was offered a position on the Safe Rides board of advisers.

Safe Rides Unlimited is extremely excited to have such a positive, experienced and devoted individual on its board of advisors.

Andre Polakoff

Mr. Polakoff is a senior technology executive with over 10 years of Management Consulting and IT experience.  He has a successful track record of leading complex technology implementations, business process reengineering, and strategy projects at prominent US and global companies. Mr. Poloakoff architected and built innovative technology solutions that allowed clients to increase efficiencies of business process and achieve multimillion dollar savings.

For the past three years, Mr. Polakoff has been a Director in the Enterprise Resource Planning practice of Towers Perrin, a global management consulting firm with 78 offices in 23 countries.  He managed and oversaw quality of delivery of several large US and Global projects.  Mr. Polakoff demonstrated his thought leadership by presenting client case studies, innovative solutions and best practices at multiple national conferences, forums and meetings, and writing articles for professional publications.

Prior to Towers Perrin, Mr. Polakoff worked as a managing consultant for Ernst & Young and Capgemini, global leaders in consulting, technology and outsourcing.  He managed custom software development, system implementation and technology strategy projects for over 20 different clients.  He worked directly with CIOs, Senior VPs and other business leaders to define strategy of taking advantage of effective use of technology.

Mr. Polakoff was instrumental in design and development of a brand new Safe Rides management and reservation system.  The technology solution he designed played a crucial role in allowing Safe Rides Unlimited to expand its services to many different states.  Mr. Polakoff continues to incorporate new technology ideas that are making Safe Rides the most effective organization to ever combat drunk driving in the US.

Mr. Polakoff currently resides in Orange County, California and has three young boys.