Word is getting out: party hardy, but when it’s time to go home, call Operation Red Nose.
This year, more people got the message, with 430 rides home given, 77 more than last year.
And more people pitched in by volunteering for a few nights, helping staff the three-person crews that pick up partiers, drive them and their vehicles home safely in return for a donation, said Linda Palm with Pacific Sport, the non-profit group that runs Operation Red Nose in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.
This year, 283 people helped out, compared to 197 from the year before.
“The volunteers really responded well this year,” said Palm.
She added that the increase in calls is more of a result of the program maturing rather than the tough new drinking and driving rules that allows police to seize vehicles at roadside and issue driving suspensions on the spot.
Operation Red Nose used word of mouth, it’s partnership with The News and contacting local pubs to get the word out in the fourth year of the program.
“Our first year we only provided 166 rides and we’ve almost doubled that this year. Actually, we more than doubled that.”
A party of three Red Nose volunteers answers each call, one to drive the customer’s car home, another to navigate and another to drive the return vehicle back to Red Nose headquarters. In return for a donation, customers get the convenience of arriving home safely with their vehicle parked in the driveway.
Palm said 99 per cent of the people they pick up wouldn’t pass a roadside screening by police. The service isn’t just for partiers, but for anyone who doesn’t feel safe driving at night or in the winter, such as seniors or new drivers.
“It’s basically for anybody who doesn’t feel safe to drive, can call us to use the service.”
Pacific Sport operates Red Nose in the Ridge Meadows and Abbotsford areas and uses it as a fundraiser to support amateur sport.
Crews answered calls to office and home parties as well as pubs and restaurants. Eleven cities are covered in the Fraser Valley while other groups operate Red Nose in other parts of Metro Vancouver. However, there’s still no Red Nose service in Vancouver, Burnaby or New Westminster.
“We tend to get a lot of people who want to get back from there.” But unless the service is offered in one city, they usually can’t give rides to areas where there is no Red Nose program, Palm explained.
New Year’s Eve is the busiest of the nine evenings that Red Nose offers the service, with 88 parties of partiers getting safe rides home, 18 more than the year before.
Pacific Sport also raised more in donations from the rides this year, hauling in $10,187 – about $2,000 more than last year. The average donation works out to about $24 per ride.
“The Ridge-Meadows program is growing quite nicely,” Palm said.
“We’re really pleased with the turnout of the volunteers. It was a very successful year.”
More pubs and bars are jumping on the bandwagon by paying $250 to be a sponsor in return for getting table cards advertising the service, Palm added.
Maple Ridge Towing helps with the overhead costs by donating their office space for the headquarters.
Palm said she hasn’t had any complaints from taxi companies concerned about losing business. “I have not had a single call … from the taxi people.”
She’s heard that taxi companies can’t keep up with the demand on those nights.
Across Canada, according to Operation Red Nose’s headquarters in Quebec City, 85,926 rides home were provided by 58,683 volunteers.