Driving home while under the influence can lead to many problems for young college students early on. A night of drinking with some friends may not seem all too fun when one is being hit with a ticket for driving under the influence.

Safe Rides, formally named Greek Rides, is a program sponsored by the Associated Students targeted to college students, faculty and staff. The purpose of Safe Rides is to provide people a safe ride home when drinking and also serves to prevent accidents related to drinking and driving.

According to Safe Rides Director Cyndi Morikone, the most popular times Safe Rides is used are when events such as Derby Days are taking place.

“The number of calls is in correlation with events,”Morikone said.

Safe Rides provides free, safe, and most importantly confidential rides to the students at Sacramento State as well as the staff and faculty. Safe Rides is open from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Thursday., Friday and Saturday nights.

This service is run by volunteers from Sac State?s fraternities, sororities, clubs and professional organizations. Safe Rides’ number one goal is to prevent any harm from happening to students of Sac State that would otherwise be caused while driving under the influence. Each year, Safe Rides has contributed to bringing home an average of 1,000 people. Without Safe Rides, those individuals would have attempted to drive home while intoxicated. “Safe Rides is providing these people with a safer choice,” Morikone said.

Safe Rides is only available for rides home and not rides to parties. People are encouraged to call the Safe Rides office when they feel they have had too much to drink. Volunteers are then sent out to pick up the individual and drive them home securely and safely.

Safe Rides volunteers take their last call at 2:45 a.m. and no later. David Wilbur, volunteer driver for Safe Rides, says he enjoys volunteering his time to such a program. “It?s a good service to provide to students and these people seem harmless so there?s no need to feel nervous when driving them home,” Wilbur said.

There are many consequences attached to having a DUI.

For someone who is hit with their first DUI offense they can expect to be in cuffs for more than one hour, spend four hours in jail, three hours getting their car back and two days at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

In addition, you can expect to spend two nights on the DUI impact victim panel, 15 weeks taking DUI classes, four months without a license, four years on probation and seven years with two points on your driving record with an estimated total to exceed $5,294 in fines.

Many students don?t know that driving while intoxicated is a leading cause of death in the United States.

It is estimated that the 2.2 million drunk drivers that crash each year hit at least 1.3 million innocent people. Another statistic in this case is that one in every three college students drink primarily to get drunk. Alcohol is one of the main reasons students on college campuses miss classes, get poor grades and even drop out. Many students don?t look to care or even know that it is unlawful to drive any vehicle with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or above.

“I think that this program is great,” said senior Alexandria Schembra. “If it wasn?t for Safe Rides, a lot more students would attempt to drive home while under the influence.” So next time you think about picking up the car keys to drive home after a party and you know that you?ve been drinking, consider giving Safe Rides a call at 1-800-GO-4-CSUS. Safe Rides will make sure that you have a ride home after that Friday night party.

Safe Rides volunteers, Kennelyn Ceralde and Felix Torres are then sent out to pick up the individual and drive them home securely and safely. The purpose of Safe Rides is to provide people a safe ride home when drinking and also serves to prevent accidents related to drinking and driving.