THUNDER BAY – For the 11th year, hundreds of Thunder Bay residents took advantage of Operation Red Nose’s ride service to get home safely over the holiday season. The volunteer-run program aims to combat impaired driving by offering motorists a ride home in their own vehicle.
Operating Thursday to Saturday throughout December, the program offered a total of 579 rides. That added up to over 11,000 kilometres driven by the campaign’s road teams.
Around 130 volunteers made the campaign a reality this year. They work in teams of three, with a driver and navigator hopping in with the caller to get them safely home.
The program is run by St. John Ambulance, and helps provide a boost to the charity’s local budget. This year’s Red Nose campaign raised over $12,000, partly in larger donations from groups like Tbaytel, and partly through contributions from those who use the service.
While the total number of rides was down somewhat from recent years, organizers say they still had trouble meeting demand at peak times. Brian Edwards, volunteer coordinator with St. John Ambulance, says this year’s volunteer numbers were higher than usual, but callers still sometimes had wait times of up to an hour, often on Saturday nights. He hopes to find more volunteers for those peak times in future years.
Another reason for the slight decrease in ride numbers could be that other organizations, like ride-hailing service Uride, offered free rides to combat impaired driving this year. Edwards welcomes the company.
“We’re all in this together, we’re all kind of on the same page to get our community members back home instead of getting behind the wheel impaired,” he says.
Thunder Bay Police reported a record number of impaired driving arrests in 2019, with a total of 204. However, they attributed the increase largely to “investment in training for new officers, new drug-testing technologies, and an increase in the number of Drug Recognition Experts.”
