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Finding safe transportation on a holiday night

Monday, March 26 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Jared Hedman, Littleton

I am writing to you in regards to a recent experience I had over the St. Patricks holiday weekend. Before I begin the letter, I need to state that several years ago; I was involved in a DUI stop and was later found to be driving under the influence.

Of course I regret that but I am happy to say that no person or property was harmed in the incident. I learned my lesson and have been striving to not let that happen again. Thus why this last weekend's events really aggravated me.

Like many other people, I was trying to find a way to celebrate the holiday weekend with friends. We decided to try and keep things quiet by simply heading to a local bar in Highlands Ranch. I was able to convince my friends that if we were going to go out, even for just a short time, we should call a cab to and from the bar. Just to be safe. They agreed and when we got home from dinner, we called Yellow Cab to come and pick us up from our house. Needless to say, about an hour and 15 minutes later, we decided to call Yellow Cab back and cancel the request. We simply decided not to go out for the evening, but I can see how that could really frustrate people and cause them to decide to take the risk and drive. We however were not going to risk it and by the time you've waited over an hour for a cab, you just simply don't want to go out anymore. Not to mention that Yellow Cab could give us absolutely no timeline. We just wanted to go about 5 miles, that' all.

This event, which I hate to say isn't the first time it's happened, is what really frustrates me. Everyone knows the current term which states that a DUI can cost you upwards of $8,000. I'm curious what happens with that money. I realize all these over bearing funds like MADD receive a ton of money from each DUI, but what good comes from that. Advertisements telling us DUI's are bad; we already know that. I'm sure the cities and municipalities love the income from DUI's, heck, its easy money for them. But let's face the truth, they are doing nothing proactive for the problem, it's all simply punishment after the fact.

In my mind, a large percentage of all the money from those convictions should be going to things like mass transit assistance during high risk nights and weekends. Possibly helping cab companies with busy nights, etc. They should be running bus routes on weekends like this that run late at night and are heavily posted. Here's an idea, like many people out there, I pay an HOA. Why wouldn't our HOA's work with companies like RTD and offer specialized transportation service on nights like this. For instance, virtually every neighborhood has a school of some sort in it; why not make those stops along a special route on nights like St. Patricks. I'd be more than happy to walk a block to my local school and take a bus to the entertainment districts in my area. If you advertised this service correctly weeks before such weekends (possibly even in the lovely HOA newsletters), people would surely use the benefit.

In the end, it really aggravates me that our city, state, and local governments are doing absolutely nothing (at least that's the appearance), to help this issue in a proactive measure. They would rather setup checkpoints that setup special bus routes. Our cab companies are virtually unregulated and appear as though they are not using modern technologies to help make their services more efficient. My friends and I tried to do the right thing but it's apparent that it's not the easy thing. Quite possibly why so many people choose not to do the right thing. It's just another example of how people are content with the way things are rather than making a necessary change to make a system better.

I'm glad that my friends and I decided not to take the chance and risk a night out on the town, but I'm disappointed that we could not enjoy the night safely.

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