Come Thursday night, an army of drunk people will overtake the streets of Tampa Bay.
Ideally, none of said drunk people will be manning any kind of motorized vehicle.
On Wednesday, ride-sharing service Uber and the nonprofit Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) teamed up to help spread the word about how dumb it is to drive drunk (apparently a few people still don't know that), and stress that there are quite a few alternatives to doing so (including, obviously, Uber).
“We know that rides are more often requested at times when tragic incidents due to drunk driving happen in this community," said Christine Mitchell, general manager of Uber's Tampa Bay leg. "We know that the rides that you're providing are more often at the times when tragic incidents occur. And we know that people getting into your car are making a responsible decision not to drink and drive.”
Gathered under a white tent on a second floor terrace of the Epicurean Hotel were dozens of Uber drivers, whom MADD's Bianca Kendall praised for helping curb the rate of drunk driving deaths.
“We see each and every one of you as one of the many pieces of the puzzle that's really working hard in Hillsborough County, which is number three in the state for drunk driving arrests and drunk driving deaths," she said. "You bring these numbers down and keep everybody safer.”
Kendall cited a study MADD and Uber conducted that correlates the number of alcohol-related vehicular incidents with the introduction of ride-sharing services like Uber and its primary competition, Lyft. The study suggested that the rate of impaired driving declined in various metro areas, including Tampa Bay.
“In the initial study we found a six percent reduction in California after Uber came into California," she said. "We found a ten percent reduction in the Seattle area, and I'm very, very excited to tell you today that between last year and this year, since Uber has come into Hillsborough County, we've had a 14.2 percent reduction in drunk driving here.”
The bummer? Surge pricing.
Meaning, drunk people who need to get to and fro when there are lots of people trying to do the same will face exorbitant charges for doing so; perhaps a hundred bucks for going quite a short distance.
Mitchell defended the practice of charging incredibly higher rates by suggesting partiers have other options if they don't want to pay the (quite a bit of) extra money.
“We prefer to give riders a choice, that they can choose to accept the pricing at the current level or…there's a functionality in the application where they'll be notified when the pricing goes down, so if they want to stay with their friends for a little while longer, wait until the pricing goes down and the demand has subsided [they can].”
This article appears in Dec 24-30, 2015.