SAN ANTONIO – Blackout Wednesday is not as widely known as Black Friday. However, law enforcement is aware of the term and urges drivers to understand it to help keep themselves and their families safe on the highways the night before Thanksgiving Day.
“Unfortunately, starting on Blackout Wednesday all throughout the weekend for Thanksgiving, we see a huge spike on crashes and most of them are drunk-related or impaired-related crashes,” said Texas Department of Public Safety Sergeant Dila Hidalgo.
Hidalgo said there is a tendency for several people to overindulge in alcohol at family and friend get-togethers.
According to DPS statistics, there were just over 1,700 crashes across Texas on Blackout Wednesday last year. Twenty of those crashes involved driving while intoxicated, and two were fatal.
“People need to learn how to prepare, plan, find a sober ride and make those plans before you decide to go out to drink,” Hidalgo said.
Free Rides Program, a nonprofit in San Antonio, can step in to help.
“People can contact us 24 hours, said Aziza Salama, executive director of Free Rides Program. “And with that, our dispatch will respond to them and send them a free ride home, specifically from Uber.”
Salama said the nation leads in deaths per capita.
“We’re up there with some of the major market cities of people having several deaths and fatalities due to drunk driving,” she said.
The program is a grassroots movement created by a collective of several different communities that were tired of hearing about drinking and driving, Salama said.
Salama said her involvement with the program and the push to raise awareness of Blackout Wednesday are personal.
“I myself was impacted by a drunk driver in 2016,” Salama said. “So, I’m coming up on 10 years next year, where I lost my late fiancé, Johnny Hernandez.”
She stresses that the goal of the Free Rides Program is to remove drunk drivers from the road to prevent anyone from going through the pain she went through.
“We want to make sure that people wake up Thanksgiving morning and celebrate it with their family,” Salama said.
Beginning Wednesday, DPS officials said drivers across Texas will see a lot more state troopers on the highways and interstates through New Year’s Day.
“The last thing families want is a knock on their door from a state trooper saying that they’ve lost a loved one,” Hidalgo said. ”Let’s celebrate in a healthy way and make good choices.”
To get a free Uber ride through the Free Rides Program, call 210-281-1121 or visit their website.
Salama said you will need to answer a couple of questions to have a free Uber sent to your location. Callers will be asked for their name, location, destination, phone number, and the vehicle they are leaving behind.
Free Rides will not dispatch an Uber if the caller is going to another bar or has already ordered a ride, Salama said. The program is designed to get callers who should not be driving safely home.
Currently, the program operates only within San Antonio city limits.
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