Plan ahead for New Year’s Eve 2014
What are your plans for New Year’s Eve? Do they involve celebrating with alcohol? Local cab companies and the Pocatello police are saying if that’s the case, the best thing you can do is preplan to get to and from your destination with a driver who is 100 percent sober.
“We’ve seen instances where the designated driver is just the least drunk of everybody in the car, not necessarily meaning that they’re under the limit,” said Lt. Paul Manning.
Manning says police will be doing more than their regular patrols on New Years Eve.
“We’re going to have a full complement of officers out on patrol,” he said. “So it’s not going to be a skeleton crew.”
Manning said in 2013 there were a total of 205 DUI arrests made, and so far this year there have been 27 more. Of those in 2013, 17 of them were in December, with 21 arrests made so far this year.
Bannock Transportation said those DUIs end up being a lot more costly than a taxi ride.
“If you live within town, a ride is about $8, anywhere from $8 to $10, generally,” said driver Carl McElhinney. “If you’re clear over in Chubbuck, it starts creeping up to $12 to $13.”
Both say it’s important to preplan not just the ride, but when the ride gets there. If you call for a ride at 2 a.m., after the bar closes down, you could be stuck outside in the extreme cold weather for 30, even 45 minutes.
“Especially at 2 o’clock in the morning,” McElhinney said. “We’re very busy. And so a list builds up rather quick.”
Look below for a list of taxi and other services you can call on New Year’s Eve.
Pocatello area
Sam’s Taxi Cab Services
(208) 904-0420
Yellow Cab
(208) 740-8294
Bannock Transportation
(208) 232-0537
Denny’s Wrecker Car Service (free tows home in Pocatello/Chubbuck area)
(208) 237-0671
SafeRide Shuttle (also in Rexburg area)
(208) 206-7592
IF TAXI
(208) 403-4285
Rexburg Taxi Greengo
(208) 403-3823
