Crime & Safety

Need To Know: Cab Services for New Year's Eve Drinkers

If you need a ride this holiday, make sure you have these ride services on speed dial.

Heading out to the this New Year's Eve? Or, perhaps you're hitting up one of the bars around town? Or maybe you'll be celebrating the arrival of 2012 at a friend's house.

Whatever you do this New Year's Eve, if you're out and drinking it's important to keep safety top of mind.

According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, two to three times more people die alcohol-related crashes during Christmas and New Year's than during comparable periods the rest of the year. And 40 percent of traffic fatalities during both holidays involve a driver who has been drinking.

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Those who ring in the new year in Birmingham are usually on the safe side,  Cmdr. Terry Kiernan said.

"There hasn't been an uptick in DUI's or drinking problems," he said. "But that's usually because people know we're out there. They know to be careful."

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The Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) also released a special warning this year, advising bartenders and party hosts to check IDs to ensure drinkers are of legal age. Accordng to a 2005 study of teenagers aged 13-18, conducted by the American Medical Association, two out of three teens said it was easy to get alcohol. Overall, nearly half the teens surveyed reported having somehow obtained alcohol.

"With older siblings home from college or visiting family in town for the holidays, it is even more tempting and easier for kids to obtain and consume alcohol," MLCC commissioner Teri Quimby said.

Still, if you're drinking in and around Birmingham this New Year's Eve, a variety of cab services are only a phone call away:

The Designate

  • Phone: 855-237-4838
  • Hours: Monday-Friday, 5 p.m.-3 a.m.; 24 hours on the weekends
  • For more: When the Designate picks you up, they bring two drivers: One to drive you home, the other the bring your car home that night. Making a reservation is recommended.

Michigan Green Cabs

  • Phone: 877-476-8294
  • Hours: 24 hours
  • For more: Michigan Green cabs are hybrid vehicles, saving gas and reducing green house emissions. To order a cab online, visit Michigan Green Cabs' online order form.

Checker Cab

  • Phone: 313-963-700
  • Hours: 24 hours
  • For more: Checker Cab is the largest cab company in Michigan and serves all of the city of Detroit.

Metro Cars

  • Phone: 800-456-1701
  • Hours: 24 hours
  • For more: Have a big group? Metro Cars offers chauffered sedans, limos and group transportation services throught Michigan and Metro Detroit.

You can also ask your friendly bartender to call you a cab. They usually have a number handly, especially on big nights like New Year's.

If you don't call a cab, the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse also reminds holiday partiers to choose their designated drivers carefully.

"Remember that a designated driver is someone who hasn't had any alcohol, not simply the person in your group who drank the least," it says in a press release.


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