If a few cervezas or margaritas are in your future for Cinco de Mayo, make sure that you have a sober ride home. A nonprofit is offering free or discounted rides for the night in the D.C. area.
The Washington Regional Alcohol Program hopes its educational programming will prevent drunk driving.
“But as good as those efforts might be, we realized that you need to have a safety valve for these high risk, high alcohol consumption periods. Of which absolutely, Cinco de Mayo is one of them,” said Kurt Erickson, president of the nonprofit.
The group is giving away $15 rides through Lyft that will be available starting at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. The offer lasts until 4 a.m. the following morning.
“Anybody celebrating Cinco de Mayo with alcohol in the greater Washington area can afford themselves a free and safe ride home via WRAPS sober ride program,” Erickson said.
Erickson said the holiday, which celebrates the Mexican victory over France at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, is in “the annals of those drunk driving holidays.”
“In fact it’s 36%, way more than a third, of all traffic deaths in this country, specifically on May 5, involve drunk drivers, meaning that they’re 100% preventable,” he said
The code for that ride, which can be entered in the Lyft app, will be available starting at 3 p.m. on Tuesday on WRAP’s homepage.
