Lyft, Budweiser Team Up To Fight Drunk Driving With Free Rides In Some States

Image courtesy of Lyft

Instead of stumbling to your car after a night of drinking beer, Lyft and Budweiser want you to stumble into a chauffeured vehicle, and have teamed up to offer free rides to encourage folks to make the safer choice.

Lyft announced that starting Sept. 16 (and through the end of this year), Budweiser is providing up to 80,000 free rides during the promotion. The offer will be available on weekends for adults 21 and older, between the prime partying hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. You can only score free rides if you live in New York, Colorado, Illinois, and Florida, however.

“By giving passengers access to free rides each week, we hope everyone will think twice before getting behind the wheel after drinking and look to Lyft as a solution,” says Oliver Hsiang, VP Partnerships at Lyft, in the company’s announcement.

To take advantage of the promotion, Lyft users will have to keep an eye on Budweiser’s Facebook and Twitter channels, where a unique code for a $10 free credit will be shared every Thursday at 2 p.m. ET. The first 5,000 Lyft users to claim those codes each week can use them that weekend, with the codes dropping into their Lyft accounts once they’ve accessed the claim site.

Of course, if you’re going somewhere that costs more than $10, your ride won’t be entirely free. But hey, it’s still better than having drunk drivers on the road: there are approximately 10,000 fatalities in drunk driving crashes each year, accounting for 29% of all traffic fatalities, according to the Department of Transportation.

“Drunk driving is one hundred percent preventable, and Budweiser and Lyft are dedicated to helping people get home safely,” said Katja Zastrow, Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility – Better World at Anheuser-Busch. “As one of the biggest beer brands in the world, Budweiser can play a leading role in the fight against drunk driving, and our program with Lyft will make a positive impact and start conversations about this vital issue.”

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