EVERETT — As the owner of a local tow truck company, John Guihan sees the devastation caused by drunken driving.
This year, he’s trying to do something about it before he’s called to clean it up.
“Our goal is to prevent tragedy,” said Guihan, who owns American Towing in Everett.
A little more than a year ago Guihan started the Home Safe program, using his towing company to offer would-be drunken drivers an option for getting themselves and their vehicles home in one piece. He usually charges a flat $50 fee.
This year, the service is free Christmas Eve and the following Friday and Saturday nights, from 8 p.m. and 3 a.m.
On New Year’s Eve, Home Safe will operate on extended hours, running until about noon New Year’s Day.
“If it’s 5 a.m. and you need to get home, please, call us,” Guihan said.
Tow trucks will be running to locations throughout Everett and from north Marysville to 212th Street in Lynnwood.
Teams of drivers also are offering to get people and their cars home. A pilot car will follow volunteer drivers to each location.
Guihan and his employees have all lost people to drunken driving. That, coupled with bearing witness to repeated tragedy, is what drives this program.
“People that see the crashes or read about them, they experience that for a day. We have to live it for months, for as long as we have the car here,” he said. “We see the widows or the sons. We have to deal with the lawyer. We have to figure out what to do with the car, and where the belongings go.”
On average, American Towing responds to 10 drunken driving calls a night every weekend, including accidents and traffic stops. But that number tends to go up during the holidays as people celebrate.
“We’d like to cut that number in half this year, and hopefully, as people hear about what we’re doing, half again next year,” Guihan said.
The Washington State Patrol has been conducting emphasis patrols for impaired drivers since Nov. 25. As of 5 a.m. Tuesday, they’d made 189 drunken driving arrests in Snohomish County.
“We removed 189 unsafe drivers from the roads, and that is potentially 189 lives saved,” trooper Travis Shearer said. The cost of a DUI easily can reach upward of $20,000 in fines and fees, he said.
The $50 fee usually charged for a Home Safe trip doesn’t cover costs, so the towing company loses money, Guihan said.
“We are not sticklers about the money,” he said. “For veterans who can’t pay, they ride for free all the time. For people who are earnestly down on their luck, we will help them out with a free ride from time to time. We do what we can to give back to people.”
Andrew Gobin: 425-339-3000 ext. 5461; agobin@heraldnet.com.
American Towing
425-355-7212
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