By Sara Ballenger

Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier

Sean Harris doesn’t mind when complete strangers call him late on a weekend night for a ride home.

Neither do the other teens who volunteer for the Safe Ride program at the Palo Alto Area Red Cross (PAARC). Students from Gunn, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View, St. Francis, Pinewood and Homestead high schools volunteer to run the confidential program. Free rides are available Friday and Saturday nights, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

The program operates out of the Red Cross Training Center, at the Olive Tree Shopping Center, Mountain View.

“This program started about 15 years ago, when two students from Gunn and Palo Alto High ended up dying in a drunk driving accident,” said Orlando Lopez, youth services manager at the PAARC.

Both schools and the PAARC wanted to do something to make a difference in teenage drinking and driving incidents and accidents, Lopez said.

“We are a program run for teens, by teens,” he said. “If you call us, we’ll send out one of your peers to pick you up and give you a ride home.”

The teens who pick up those in need of a ride have gone through a training program, Lopez said. “In our training, we check their driver’s license information and driver’s records with the DMV,” he said. The students drive Red Cross vehicles while on a call.

Safety of the volunteers is also key, Lopez added. “There are two people per car, one male and one female,” Harris said. Harris is a student at St. Francis and in his fourth year of volunteering with Safe Ride. “We have cell phones for safety, and it helps if you get wrong directions,” he said.

The PAARC makes certain that the program is staffed with four student volunteers and one adult volunteer at all times, Lopez said. About 120 to 150 students volunteer with Safe Ride per year.

“Each high school has two coordinators,” Lopez explained. “The schools in our program alternate weekends. It averages out that each school works about four or five weekends a year. We are hoping to bring Castilleja on board next year, as well as some of the alternative high schools.”

Kristin Herrera, a student at Los Altos High, will have her next rotation as a volunteer at the end of June.

“It’s exciting that someone needs your help,” she said. “It makes you feel good that you could be saving someone’s life, if they had been in a car with someone who had been drinking.”

“Some nights we are really busy,” Lopez said, “especially if the students know where the parties are. A busy night is about three to five calls.”

According to the Mother’s Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Web site, the majority of teens die from drunk-driving-related incidents between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m. According to MADD, eight young people per day die in alcohol-related crashes.

Not all teens who use Safe Ride are inebriated. “A lot of times these are kids who came to a party with someone else and the driver’s been drinking and they don’t feel safe driving home,” Lopez said. “If you are a teen-ager and you need a safe ride home, we are here to give that to you.”

“If you’re gonna drink and party, be smart about it. That’s what we’re there for,” Harris said.

“With alcohol-related crashes being the number one killer of teens year after year, hopefully this is one of the ways we can change that,” Lopez said.

Safe Ride is a confidential community service and can be reached at (800) 753-RIDE. For more information about Safe Ride, or to volunteer, call Orlando Lopez at 688-0449.