Recently a study was conducted to see if people who use a FREE safe ride drank more.  We at safe rides believe that offereing FREE safe rides is not the answer since it leave people with more money and a greater incentive to start abusing alcohol.  The key is to find the right balance between making the rides as cost effective as possible, while still allowing people to enjoy the night out. below is the article that was found on ScienceDirect.com

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MADD is hogging the road

Requiring that even light drinkers use breathalyzers in their cars is going too far.

 By Sarah Longwell

Last week, the House transportation committee unveiled the details of a six-year, $450 billion highway bill. Buried within is a controversial sentencing requirement for low-level, first-time drunken-driving offenders: ignition interlocks.

These in-car breathalyzers prevent vehicles from starting if a driver’s breath registers above a preset blood-alcohol concentration. Because they are so expensive, intrusive, and prone to technical failures, this penalty has typically been reserved for the most extreme offenders.

If the bill passes in its current form, Mothers Against Drunk Driving will be one step closer to its goal of prohibiting responsible adults from having a glass of wine with dinner before driving home.

The hospitality industry has already been working with traffic-safety advocates to require ignition interlocks for repeat offenders caught with high blood-alcohol concentrations. We’ve succeeded in 27 states. But under the new transportation bill, those states will be penalized if they do not impose the devices on first-time offenders – even those just one sip over the legal limit.

A 120-pound woman can reach the legal limit of 0.08 percent after two 6-ounce glasses of wine in a two-hour period. Under this proposed mandate, if such a woman drives, she could be punished with an interlock device – for behavior that is, according to several studies, no more dangerous than driving while talking on a hands-free cell phone.

Mandating ignition interlocks for all drunken-driving offenders is a one-size-fits-all approach, inflicting the same punishment on that woman and the hardcore abusers who cause the vast majority of alcohol-related fatalities. It eliminates a judge’s ability to treat different offenders differently, and America’s criminal-justice system has a terrible record with mandatory minimum sentences.

Most state legislatures have already made it clear that they favor judicial discretion, rejecting mandates for low-blood-alcohol, first-time offenders, or passing ignition-interlock bills that target high-blood-alcohol, repeat offenders. Their decisions are supported by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics showing that most alcohol-related fatalities involve offenders at more than twice the legal limit.

But, under pressure from MADD, the House is poised to force those legislatures to change their laws. To those who recall the debate over lowering the legal limit from 0.10 to 0.08 percent, it’s a familiar scenario.

In 1998, Congress approved highway-funding sanctions for states that would not lower their limits after MADD insisted that doing so would save thousands of lives. It didn’t: In 2007, the number of alcohol-related fatalities was roughly the same as 10 years earlier.

In 2006, MADD projected that ignition-interlock technology – set to prevent driving at blood-alcohol levels as low as 0.02 percent – could be “standard equipment” for all American vehicles within 10 years. Three years later, we are already on the verge of requiring the devices even for marginal offenders.

If MADD’s latest push goes forward unabated, it won’t be long until your car is forbidding you from driving home after a champagne toast at a wedding or a beer at a baseball game.

The article below shows that drunk driving accidents in NJ are declining.  Even though it does not mention Safe Rides Unlimited or any other organization as a reason for the decline.  We at SRU would like to believe that the 1000 or more people that use SRU instead of driving drunk are the ones that should be praised.  With your help we have proven that people will make the right choice granted they have the available options.

When asked SRU Founder Moe Sattar commented on the article and thanked people who made the right choice by not driving drunk.

Article taken from: http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics-new-jersey.html

The number of alcohol-related deaths in New Jersey has dropped significantly from a high of 622 in 1982, to a low of 263 in 2005. The percentage of fatalities that were alcohol related has also dropped steadily, from a high of 59% in 1982, to a low of 35% in 1996 and 2005. In 2006, out of all traffic fatalities, 29% involved a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 or higher.

The table above shows the total number of traffic fatalities (Tot) for the New Jersey, alcohol related fatalities (Alc-Rel) and fatalities in crashes where the highest BAC in the crash was 0.08 or above (0.08+).

All 50 states in the US now apply two statutory offenses to operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. The first (and original) offense is known either as driving under the influence (DUI), driving while intoxicated/impaired (DWI), or operating while intoxicated/impaired (OWI). This is based upon a police officer’s observations (driving behavior, slurred speech, the results of a roadside sobriety test, etc.)

The second offense is called “illegal per se”, which is driving with a BAC of 0.08% or higher. Since 2002 it has been illegal in all 50 states to drive with a BAC that is 0.08% or higher.

It is important to note that the New Jersey drunk driving statistics, as shown above, include data from individuals who were in an alcohol-related crash, but not driving a motor vehicle at the time. The U.S. Department of Transportation defines alcohol-related deaths as “fatalities that occur in crashes where at least one driver or non-occupant (pedestrian or bicyclist) involved in the crash has a positive Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) value.”