ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 8, 1996 TAG: 9606090062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FAIRFAX
SOURCE: Associated Press
A proposal to safely drive drunken teen-agers home is drawing fire from Fairfax County officials who fear it would encourage teens to drink.
The Safe Rides program would allow teen-agers to call and get a confidential ride home.
Louis Herzog, chairman of the county's Oversight Committee on Drinking and Driving, said the free ride, coupled with the promise of confidentiality, would create an atmosphere in which teen-agers would drink with abandon.
``If kids continue to do these things and parents don't know it's happening because the rides are confidential, I feel we're just causing damage,'' Herzog said.
Members of the McLean-Langley Safe Communities Coalition, which proposed the Safe Rides program, were taken aback by the committee's recommendation to the Board of Supervisors that the county neither sanction the program nor allow it to use the McLean Teen Center.
``The Safe Rides program is sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America and there are 180 successful programs around the country,'' said Tom Mangan, a member of the coalition. ``We don't want to say it's OK to drink, but we have to acknowledge that some students do drink. We want to get those kids home safely.''
The program envisioned by the coalition - and supported by local groups such as the Rotary Club, American Legion and McLean Citizens Association - would have two adults and four to six teen-agers operating out of the McLean Teen Center once a week, probably Friday or Saturday.
Any of the nearly 3,000 students at Langley or McLean high schools who felt they were in a dangerous situation could call the center, and two teen-agers would be dispatched in a private car to give the caller a confidential ride home.
Mangan said girls being pressured by their boyfriends would be eligible for rides, as would baby sitters who suspect that the parent who was to drive them home is drunk.
The committee's decision not to support the program was supported by several anti-drinking groups.
``The problem with the Safe Rides program is that it's not a no-use concept,'' said Chuck Pena, director of the Northern Virginia chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
``It's not saying, `Don't use drugs; don't use alcohol,''' Pena said. ``And the second problem is this - that kids need to know there are consequences for doing what (they have) done. This Safe Rides program gives kids a way out.''
Money also was a factor in the oversight committee's opposition to the Safe Rides program. Herzog said if the schools promote the program, they lose the federal funds they receive through the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act, which mandates school sponsorship of only ``no use'' programs.
Last year Fairfax schools received $540,000 under the act, said Nina Pitkin, coordinator of the schools' Alcohol and Other Drug Use Prevention office.
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