'Safe Ride' Offers Free Cab for Impaired Beverly Hills Teens

The city's Health and Safety Commission has launched its ‘Tis the Season to be Safe campaign and along with The Maple Counseling Center is offering Beverly Hills teens who need it a free, sober ride home on weekend nights. 

On Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., teens living in Beverly Hills can call 888-654-3211 for a free ride home when they are under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. When the teenager calls the Safe Ride number a TMCC counselor assigned to the 24-hour HELP-LINE arranges for that teen to be picked up by the Beverly Hills Cab Company and taken home. Services are confidential.

The city wants residents to stay safe on the road and offers these statistics as a reminder to never operate a vehicle while impaired, or ride as a passenger with an impaired driver:

• Drunk drivers are responsible for 200,000 deaths each year.
• Eight young people die every day from alcohol-related incidents. It is the No. 1 killer of teenagers in America.
• The total cost to our society because of drunk driving-related incidents is now approaching $150 billion per year.
• To reach a blood-alcohol level of .08, it only takes two drinks (two cans of beer, two wine coolers or two 1-ounce glasses of whiskey) for the average adult man or woman.

Be sure to follow Beverly Hills Patch on Twitter and "Like" us on Facebook.