If you’ve had trouble contacting Safe Ride this year, there’s a reason.
Safe Ride, a student organized program that operates nationwide, offers free rides to students on select nights in order to prevent drunk driving.
The number listed for Safe Ride on the back of the Associated Student Body cards given to students at the beginning of the year is incorrect, according to Palo Alto High School Safe Ride coordinator Emma Ruder.
The ASB cards list the Safe Ride as 1-650-330-2000, which is actually the number for Menlo High School, according to Ruder, who said the correct Safe Ride number is 1-877-753-7433.
It is unclear how the wrong number was placed on the back of the student ID cards, but ASB believes the mistake may have been made by the company that produced the cards, according to ASB Vice President George Brown.
“We’re in the process of trying to figure out how it happened,” Brown said. “We think that it’s the card company that messed up because the phone number on there now is the phone number to Menlo School.”
Brown said that if the card company is responsible for the incorrect number, ASB will likely issue new cards to students.
“If the card company that made them [the ASB cards] is the one that messed up, then we’ll ask them [the company] to reissue them [the cards] to everyone,” Brown said. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll launch a little campaign so that the number gets out and everyone knows the correct Safe Ride number.”
If the incorrect number was ASB’s fault, ASB will make stickers that students can place on the backs of their cards, according to Brown.
“On the off chance that is was ASB’s fault, our plan is to distribute stickers to all students that has the correct number and that they can stick onto their ASB cards,” Brown said.
Ruder says that the amount of calls made by Paly students to Safe Ride has dramatically decreased due to the incorrect number.
“We’ve had a significantly fewer number of calls per night,” Ruder said. “Now we only get two or three when we used to get eight or nine.”
A Campanile article published in November included claims made by students regarding the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of the Safe Ride program. Ruder responded to these claims, saying the reason for the problems with Safe Ride is the wrong number on the backs of the ASB cards.
“We pick up if they use the right number,” Ruder said. “If they don’t use the right number, we’re obviously not going to pick up.”
Ruder said her main concern is informing the student body of the correct number.
“It is really just a matter of alerting the student body and having them change the number in their cellphones,” Ruder said. “I want my fellow students to be safe on Friday and Saturday nights.”