Safe Rides

Runners and walkers are invited to participate in the fifth annual Maxximum 5K/10K Run Sunday to benefit South Orange County Safe Rides. The race includes a 10K race, 5K walk and 1K kids fun run. Cash prizes, T-shirts and local merchant giveaways will be awarded to race participants. The event will also feature entertainment, karate demonstrations, fitness exams and food booths.

Nothing's scarier than being invisible on a bike, and that can happen too often with the sun still setting before 6 p.m. That's why there's no excuse not to carry bike lights along, especially when some of the new ones are so convenient and compact that they'll stow in the smallest fanny pack, pocket or tool bag. Little stars Serfas Thunderbolt UTL-6 Headlight and Taillight: Tiny, powerful lights weigh 2 ounces each, measure about 31/2-by-3/4-by-1-inch,...

A year ago, a handful of students at Torrey Pines High School decided to sacrifice their Friday and Saturday nights and launched an innovative program called Safe Rides. Their mission: To increase awareness of the hazards of drunk driving by providing free, confidential rides home to students too tipsy to take the wheel or fearful of riding with an intoxicated friend. Modeled after a similar program in Darien, Conn.

Done with the opening festivities and the restless, single-file, first-day time trial, the Tour de France settled into the soft rhythm of racing in the flats Sunday. Six-time defending champion Lance Armstrong stayed safe in the cocoon of his Discovery Channel team protectors, finishing in 63rd place in the 112.8-mile run from Challans, and is in second place overall.

A program that provides free rides to teen-agers who think they have had too much to drink could see its funding reduced under a proposal now being considered. Irvine's Safe Rides program is run by Explorer Scouts and paid for by People for Irvine Community Health, a nonprofit group that sponsors a variety of health and education program in the city. Facing a tight budget, PICH might cut its funding to Safe Rides, forcing the teen-agers who run the program to look for new sources of money.

Volunteers for the South County Safe Rides program will be thanked in a big way with a banquet at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Tuesday. More than 200 students and adults who participated in the program that provides transportation home for teen-agers who have been out drinking will be honored at the event, sponsored by the Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center. Health officials credited the program with helping prevent teen-age deaths due to alcohol-related accidents.

While their classmates are gathering at football games or partying with friends on Friday and Saturday nights, one group of South County teenagers is quietly setting out on a weekend mission: to guarantee that other students get home safely. Through a nonprofit organization called South County Safe Rides, they provide a confidential, no-questions-asked service, picking up and dropping off local students from 10 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. weekend nights during the school year.

It was after midnight. Cathy, 16, had been visiting a friend. She had a few beers and felt a little drunk and tired and needed a way to get home. To the rescue came Jenny Fitzpatrick and John Snakenborg of the Safe Rides program, who picked Cathy up in Snakenborg's old Pontiac and took the Manhattan Beach girl home. About 80 teen-age volunteers have signed up for the program, which provides rides for young people who have too much to drink on Friday and Saturday nights.

Safe rides home for people who have been drinking too much will be available on weekend nights beginning March 25, according to San Clemente General Hospital, which will act as headquarters for the program. Beverly Wright said the assistance program, a joint operation of students and faculty of San Clemente High School and the Boy Scouts of America, will be available on Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. by dialing 83-ALIVE.

Just after 11:30 one night last May, F. Andrew Oldfield, then a 16-year-old sophomore at Polytechnic High School in Pasadena, was driving home from a teen-age beer party. While rounding a curve on Linda Vista Avenue, he lost control of his 1968 Chevrolet Camaro and slammed on the brakes. The car spun off the road, smashing into a freeway sign and a tree before skidding to a final thunderous crash against the concrete base of a light post. "At the time I wouldn't have told you I was drunk.

It usually hits you on an excruciatingly bright Saturday morning when you've slept just long enough for the life-altering headache to set in. In an instant, your mind races through a montage of Friday night's revelry until you realize you haven't the slightest idea where you left the car. It's this predicament that two new chauffeur services aim to prevent. Home James USA and Autopilots LA both launched this month with the same idea, imported from Europe: A chauffeur drives you home -- in your car -- then jumps on a collapsible scooter and leaves you to your hangover.

Friday was a day at the beach in La Jolla for Kathy Fackler and her family, but the news about a death at Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland still found her and darkened things a bit. In 1998, that same ride left an indelible memory with the Fackler family; because of it, Fackler left her own imprint on California. On a March day five years ago, 5-year-old David Fackler tried to step off the train, thinking it had stopped. It had, but only temporarily.

The Utah Capitol could be riding the next big earthquake like a ship at sea after engineers hoist the 67,500-ton marble building and drop it on a set of shock absorbers. They can only hope to get it done in time. Salt Lake is due for a major earthquake that could knock the Capitol dome off its precarious perch, snap marble columns and collapse upper floors.

It is hard work, Kathy Fackler says, to be at odds with Mickey Mouse. To walk into the Happiest Place on Earth and be in enemy territory. That's what it feels like when you're a La Jolla mom turned amusement park safety crusader. Since her son David's foot was mangled on Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad three years ago, Fackler has become the nation's most vocal advocate for safer theme parks.

It's 1:46 a.m. in the Bat Cave, the secret location for Safe Rides. After four hours of videos, soda and pizza, and trying to sample all 39 flavors from a jar of jelly beans, the tired teens--three boys and three girls--prepare to call it a night. "I'm sick of jelly beans," Kelly Twarowski, a junior at Canyon High, blurts out. "Hey, the yellow ones with red spots are good," counters classmate Mike Meyer. Suddenly, the phone rings. Everyone becomes quiet. "Hello, Safe Rides," Twarowski answers.

It's 1:46 a.m. in the Bat Cave, the secret location for Safe Rides. After four hours of watching videos, drinking soda, eating pizza and trying to sample all 39 flavors from a jar of jellybeans, the tired group of three teenage boys and three teenage girls prepares to call it a night. Suddenly, the phone rings. Everyone becomes quiet. "Hello, Safe Rides," answers Kelly Twarowski, a junior at Canyon High School. The caller, a 17-year-old boy, says he's drunk and needs a ride home.

In Orange County alone, through September, 85 people died in alcohol-involved accidents last year, the California Highway Patrol reports. From 1982-86, the county has experienced 752 alcohol-involved deaths, with a high of 165 in 1983 and a low of 122 in 1982. Of course, the simplest solution to the problem of drunk driving is to have someone who is not inebriated do the driving.

It was six years ago that Jennifer Slusher, then a sophomore at Los Alamitos High School, heard about Safe Rides, a student-run program that provides confidential, free rides home to anyone too intoxicated to drive safely. It was the same year that two boys, a senior and junior at Los Alamitos, were killed in an alcohol-related driving accident. That tragedy spurred Slusher to action, and through her efforts a Safe Rides program was begun at Los Alamitos.

Too many times during her first two years at Cal Lutheran University, student Julie DiFatta saw her peers leaving bars and parties and driving back to campus drunk. Then a friend she grew up with died driving drunk recently. She doesn't like to talk about her friend's death, but it was the catalyst that got DiFatta thinking that she had to do something. By last spring, DiFatta had seen enough. She began planning a safe-ride program to ensure Cal Lutheran students could make it back to campus.