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Deputies to Offer Rides on New Year’s Eve
BENNINGTON - In an effort to curb drunk driving, the Bennington County Sheriff’s Department has announced that it will conduct a "Safe Ride Program" this New Year’s Eve.
Similar to N.Y. program
Modeled after a similar program that has existed in New York for several years, Bennington County Sheriff Chad Schmidt said that he hopes the Bennington effort will meet with similar success, reducing the number of DUI charges and preventing serious -- and sometimes fatal -- accidents.
The program will offer a ride home to anyone in Bennington County who has been drinking on New Year’s Eve. Participants must call the Sheriff’s Department at (802) 442-4900 between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. Schmidt said people will be driven anywhere in the county and to nearby Hoosick Falls, N.Y.
Prisoner transport vans will be used outside the Bennington area, while Bennington Taxi will serve people closer to town, according to Schmidt. Others have donated vans to be used that evening, he said.
Schmidt said that before he announced the program, he consulted with Sheriff James Campbell of the Albany, N.Y., County Sheriff’s Department, which has been conducting a Safe Ride Program for 20 years. Schmidt said the only time Campbell received a complaint about the program was last year, when he canceled it for fear of not having enough manpower to offer rides in a timely manner.
Schmidt said he did not think the program would provide an incentive for people to drink more than usual. "We are going to be out there aggressively enforcing DUI laws," he said. While he had no firm statistics, Schmidt said that in the past there had been no shortage of DUI arrests around the holidays.
He said that funding for the Safe Ride Program will come out of the department’s budget. DUI cases are expensive to prosecute, so anything that curbs drunk driving is likely to save taxpayers money, according to Schmidt.
He said the cost of a serious accident is of another magnitude, and is worth a great deal to prevent.
By: Keith Whitcomb Featured in The Bennington Banner on 12/11/2009
