If you’re drinking on New Year's Eve, use this free taxi / LJWorld.com

• Provides free rides home in Lawrence between 11 p.m. on New Year’s Eve until 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day.

• Those looking for a ride can call 842-TAXI. DCCCA advises people to plan ahead and call early.

• DCCCA is looking for donations and sponsors for the program. For more information, call Jen Jordan at 841-4138 or send email to jjordan@dccca.org.

Lawrence partygoers have no excuse to drink and drive this New Year’s Eve. They can just call Tipsy Taxi.

In its 27th year, Tipsy Taxi is a free taxi service coordinated by DCCCA to provide rides home for Lawrence residents between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. on the last night of the year. The Tipsy Taxi number is 842-TAXI.

DCCCA contracts with Ground Transportation Inc. for the rides, which numbered more than 400 last year. The program costs around $2,000, depending on how many rides are given.

Jen Jordan, prevention coordinator for DCCCA, said it’s worth the cost to keep people safe on New Year’s.

“A lot of people benefited,” she said.

In 2009, 177 fatality accidents in Kansas involved a driver who’d been drinking alcohol. Such accidents accounted for nearly 46 percent of the state’s fatality traffic accidents that year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In Douglas County in 2010, law enforcement agencies made 948 arrests for driving under the influence, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

third_planet_from_the_sun_ 1 year, 11 months ago

God i'm not waiting for a "free taxi" to drive me home, you'd wait for hours and probably end up paying for the ride.

No i'd rather just risk the drive home, done it many times before with no problems at all. I hate people who assume that because you've only had one or a few drinks that you're inadequate to drive. The fact is is that if you're not plastered drunk you're pretty safe to drive.

The limits so low you'll be legally drunk after a few beers, even though i know i'm good up to about six or eight. I would like it to go back to the good old days when they used some discretion when you're driving home from the bar, arrest those too drunk to drive home and let those who can handle themselves be.

Its those woman in MADD that make such a huge fuss and they're all secretly neo-prohibitionist anyway. Why'd we even give them the right to vote if we get this gibberish.

OonlyBonly 1 year, 11 months ago

Another of the "I can drive better than anyone else" bunch. Especially like the slam at MADD and the total disregard for the numbers of innocents killed by drunken drivers.

horseshoehalo1 1 year, 11 months ago

Keep doing it and they will eventually catch you. Then after a night in jail and thousands of dollars later you will be sorry you didn't take that free ride. Clearly you like to test your limits, and clearly you have never known anyone killed by a drunk driver. shame on you.