New Jersey town wants residents to get home safely, offers free Uber rides to all 42,000 of them
Uber has always positioned itself as a safe way to get home and has previously partnered with Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Breathometer app to reinforce the idea that yes, you should pocket your car keys and let someone else drive. But one New Jersey community is taking that one step farther, offering free Uber rides to its residents who think can't — or shouldn't — get behind the wheel.
From now until January 2, residents of Evesham Township can order a free Uber when they're ready to leave 21 participating bars and restaurants (including Outback Steakhouse and TGI Friday's). The rides are the second phase of an anti-drunk driving program called Evesham Saving Lives; the first phase used shuttles and the Sober Sam designated driver service to get its residents home safely.
The program is being funded by the Evesham Celebrations Foundation and donations from anonymous community members (so settle down, taxpayers) and, according to mayor Randy Brown, more than 350 people have already taken the city up on its offer. "We not only took them home, but we kept them off the road," Brown told NJ.com.
Evesham is the first U.S. community to partner with Uber to provide this service for its residents — and it was probably a good idea. According to Reuters, Evesham was on pace to reach 250 DUI arrests this year, which would've been an unfortunate record for the town. When the shuttle service started in September, there were only eight DUI arrests, a decrease of 65% from the previous monthly average.
Ana Mahony, the General Manager of Uber New Jersey, said:
"We're always looking for ways to utilize our technology to better serve the communities we operate in. This is a safe and free ride for people when they need to get home at the end of the night."
A recent study by Temple University in Philadelphia said that the introduction of UberX could be the reason why 14 counties in California saw between a 3.6% and 5.6% decrease in the number of drunk driving deaths during the five year period between 2009 and 2014.