When Illinois state senators revised laws dealing with teenage drivers, Jana Orenstein did not foresee how big of an effect the legislation would have on the safe ride program based out of New Trier High School.
Safe Rides is a North Shore-area escort service sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America. The program dispatches volunteer teens to pick up others in no shape to get home on their own.
But the program was suspended as a result of a law that went into effect Jan. 1. The legislation tripled the length of a learner’s permit, imposed passenger restrictions and increased required driver training. It also changed the weekend curfew for teen drivers to 11 p.m.
The program is based at New Trier, but program coordinators had planned to expand it to Evanston before the law went into effect.
Now a junior and the program’s co-President, Orenstein joined the 170-member Safe Rides network as a sophomore. She said it was important that her peers had someone to turn to if they were stuck somewhere and couldn’t get home.
“I became involved because basically I think it’s really important that my peers get home safely on Friday and Saturday night no matter what situation they’re in,” she said.
Today marks the first time since it first started in 1994 that Safe Rides isn’t running. Since calls usually don’t come in until around 11:30 or midnight, the new curfew has rendered teen drivers useless.
Safe Rides is “orchestrated very carefully,” Orenstein said. Every volunteer goes through a training course that teaches them how to recognize alcohol poisoning and how to deal with someone who is inebriated. Based out of Kenilworth Union Church, 211 Kenilworth Ave., students answer the phones and take down the person’s address at their current location and where their home is. Dispatchers are usually sophomores since they cannot legally drive yet. When they get a call, two students – a driver and passenger who acts as a navigator – pick up the caller.
“It’s always kids going to pick up other kids,” Orenstein said, adding that there are always two adults at the church to supervise. Every driver and navigator has a badge to wear so they are easily recognizable to the police.
Winnetka Deputy Chief of Police Patrick Kreis said there has been no history of any problems with the Safe Rides program, and that Illinois already grants exceptions to the new rules for school and religious activities.
“We are aware that they’ve operated for many years and we’ve never had a complaint,” he said. “Certainly we don’t have a problem with anything they’ve done, and we’re aware that state Sen. Jeffrey Schoenberg (D-Evanston) has planned legislation to allow another exception.”
Last week, Sen. Schoenberg introduced legislation to exempt the Safe Rides program. He has been in frequent contact with state Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago), Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White and local police chiefs to boost support.
“Safe Rides is an excellent program that has a long track record of providing teenagers who have no business behind the wheel with a safe alternative home,” Schoenberg said. “Senator Cullerton has reached out to Secretary of State Jesse White to indicate his interest in ensuring that Safe Rides can not only continue in communities where it has been successful, but so that other communities who wish to start their own programs can do so as well.”
Jeff Brooks, a district chairman with the Boy Scouts who coordinated the program at New Trier, told the Chicago Tribune that the law change has hindered plans to bring similar programs to Evanston, Glenview and Lincolnshire.
Josh Orenstein, Jana’s father, said he supports Safe Rides and his daughter’s involvement in the program.
“It’s a student run thing for students, and they try to keep parents out of the loop for obvious reasons, and I don’t have a really big problem with that,” he said. “I equate this program not in terms of supporting drinking but in terms of just dealing with the reality on the ground. The reality is that this program helps kids.”
Reach Corinne Lestch at [email protected].
