GOHS offers apps to get New Year's partiers home safely
(ATLANTA) Although Georgia experienced an 11% reduction in impaired driving fatalities in 2010, the Governor's Office of Highway Safety (GOHS) is taking an extra step to ensure those statistics continue to fall.
In particular, GOHS wants to make sure revelers this New Year's Eve arrive alive on the way home from their holiday festivities to ring in 2012.
To do this, GOHS consulted with safety partners across the state to compile a list of free sober ride programs to make sure you and your loved ones get home safely on one of the most notorious impaired driving nights of the year.
And in keeping with the times, this list of programs is now available in a smartphone application called Drive Sober Georgia. The application is available for free download on the iPhone and Android markets and the information can also be viewed on the website www.drivesobergeorgia.com
"We know that people are attached to their cell phones these days," said GOHS Director Harris Blackwood. "So we made it as easy as possible by putting a free sober ride in the palm of your hands. Drunk driving is an entirely preventable crime, but now, there are really no excuses."
The application will allow people in all corners of the state to have mobile access to organizations, like AAA's Tow To Go, providing free rides home for those too impaired to drive home themselves.
Whether you are an individual who needs a ride, a party host looking out for one of your guests or a bar or restaurant needing a ride for customers, this app will help you through the process. The new Drive Sober Georgia program and app are part of Georgia's annual Drive Sober Or Get Pulled Over campaign to reduce impaired driving crashes, injuries and fatalities.
While the state's zero tolerance policy for drunk driving is in effect 24/7/365, GOHS is using the travel period surrounding New Year's to remind Georgia motorists that if they get pulled over for a DUI, they will get arrested and they will go to jail.
Drive Sober Or Get Pulled Over is a high visibility enforcement program that targets impaired drivers through concentrated patrols and sobriety checkpoints.
Police officers, sheriff's deputies and state troopers will work together to protect everyone from impaired drivers during this busy time of year. The Georgia program is part of the national campaign to eliminate drunk drivers.
To learn more about the Drive Sober Georgia app, visit www.drivesobergeorgia.com and to learn more about Drive Sober Or Get Pulled Over, visit www.gahighwaysafety.org.
