It's a Friday or Saturday night. Bar, pub and nightclub patrons are shouting their liquor orders to bartenders over loud music. At a company Christmas party, the dinner plates have been cleared away, the wine glasses have been refilled and employees have lost their reservations about hitting the dance floor in front of their boss.
After getting their fill of drink and dance - and maybe a bit of drama - the the hustle and bustle from inside local establishments and venues makes it way outdoors as partygoers jostle for a taxi or call a friend for a ride home.
At least that's the ideal scenario.
Unfortunately, when the cabs start whizzing by already full and the warmth generated by an evening in a crowded room gives way to the winter chill, there are those who begin to weigh their options. Do they wait out in the cold, find a ride home and come back and collect their car the next day? Or have they stopped drinking long enough ago that they can drive home themselves?
For 14 years, the Rotary Club of Prince George - Nechako has been working to make sure residents and visitors who spend a night involving alcohol make the responsible choice with Operation Red Nose.
The free and confidential designated-driving service uses a group of volunteers who will pick clients up and drive them and their car home safely. The volunteers range from Rotary Club members, Prince George Public Library staff, Integris employees, Prince George RCMP officers and other individuals who want to make a difference.
On Red Nose nights (every Friday and Saturday between Nov. 25 and Dec. 31 except for Dec. 23 and 24), the command centre at the ICBC claims centre on 15th Avenue is a hub of activity to rival any bar or Christmas party. Volunteers' cars and those donated by Enterprise and Norgate are fitted out with radios, identifying decals and flags. Volunteers line up for nametags and bright red vests and hover around pots of coffee and snacks while getting acquainted with team members or meeting old friends.
By 9 p.m., the phone lines are open and cars are out on the road, each carrying three volunteers - one to drive the escort car, one to serve as the designated driver in the client's car and one to liaise with the dispatch, log the pick up and drop off information and navigate.
During the early hours, volunteers can be found popping into bars and Christmas parties, passing out coasters with the ORN phone number, making sure people know they're only a phone call away at 250-962-RIDE.
On Dec. 17, The Citizen donned a red vest, picked up a dispatch kit equipped with a map, log sheets and a barf bag and played navigator on a team bookended by RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Craig Douglass and Cpl. Carissa Hornoi, who's in charge of Community Policing.
The radio began buzzing to life around 10:30 p.m., sending cars zigzagging across the city for pick ups and drop offs.
Operation Red Nose was founded in Quebec in 1984 by Dr. Jean-Marie De Koninck and led by Laval University's swim team, a local radio station and the Quebec police department.
Since its Prince George inception, the seasonal operation has come a long way. Instead of strictly relying on the radio, as was done in years past, each team is now also equipped with a smartphone. As the calls come in, each team is hailed on the two-way radio to refresh the browser on their phone for their latest assignment. From the dispatch command centre, they upload the name, phone number and pick up and drop off addresses of a specific team's current client. The phone is also used as a GPS device.
Over the course of an evening, it's not unheard of to make multiple stops for a client - so they can pick up their child from the babysitter or stop at a bank machine - or to cross from the Hart to College Heights and back again. Volunteers tackle the snowy or icy conditions, dark roads, confusing addresses and driving a variety of unfamiliar vehicles, but spirits remained high, even as the final calls kept teams out until nearly 5 a.m.
On that night there were 20 teams on the road, providing 160 rides across 3,352 km. That was compared to 177 rides the same night in 2010. To date, Operation Red Nose has provided 742 rides for the 2011 season. That number would have easily breached 800, but with the amount of volunteers, it's not actually possible to reach everyone who calls for a ride. At least 30 rides in the queue had found another means of getting home by the time volunteers were able to reach their locations.
Those that do get picked up range from people who are too drunk to walk in a straight line to those who may have only had a couple of drinks, but decided not to take that risk.
Twenty-year-old Avril Harris has only missed three nights as a volunteer since the 2011 campaign began. This is the first year the Ness Lake Fire Department volunteer has been involved with Operation Red Nose and already knows it won't be his last.
"Everyone seems to be happy that they and their vehicle are getting home safely," Harris said. Although the service is free, Operation Red Nose does accept donations, with most tips averaging out at $20 per ride. That money goes through the Rotary Club and back into the community, with a focus on youth and sporting groups.
Those who get a group together from a specific organization and contribute at least 25 shifts can bring in $2,000 for their organization, explained Hornoi, who is also a member of the organizing committee.
Hornoi said that after trying it out as a volunteer one year, she couldn't help but get involved more directly.
"I got sucked into because of the dedication of the volunteers," she said.
With a club of about 40 members, the local Rotarians would not be able to provide the service year after year on their own.
"We couldn't do it without your help," Ron Neukomm, a 25-year Rotarian, told the assembled volunteers before they headed out for the evening's ride.
The memories that come out at the January volunteer appreciation dinner are an indication of why people keep coming back, explained Hornoi.
"There's always a string of cute stories, it shows how much people are having fun," Hornoi said. "People wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't fun."
Harris agreed, saying he enjoys getting set up in a car with new people and socializing as they drive around into the early morning hours.
Harris is a distinctive figure out on the road, with his red pick-up truck outfitted with deer antlers and Christmas lights twinkling around the bed.
"There's lots of photos taken of my truck," Harris laughed.
Those good times have not been hampered despite the report of an incident early Dec. 18. A Fort St. James man was arrested after attempting to get into an Operation Red Nose client's car. The client was allegedly punched before police arrived, but Red Nose spokesperson Andrea Johnson said volunteers were never in any danger and that it was a "random and isolated incident."
'We've never had a problem with any of our clients who are very happy to get a safe ride home. Our volunteers are not in danger either - it's why they travel in teams of three for safety," Johnson added.
Operation Red Nose was an easy choice for Harris when he decided to indulge his desire for volunteerism.
"I got hit by a car in July," he said. While en route home from work, on his road only two kilometres from his house, Harris was struck by driver who he said was "too drunk to remember anything."
Unlike many in these situations, Harris came away lucky, spending only five hours in the hospital though he still has physiotherapy for his sore hip, knee and lower back.
According ICBC, most alcohol-related crashes occur on a weekend and almost half of those crashed take place between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. On average, there are about 5,000 alcohol-related collisions each year in B.C., causing 3,000 injuries and 115 deaths.
One of those people was Kirstin Rudolph, whose sister-in-law Leanne was killed minutes to midnight on April 23, 2005. Each year more than seven million Canadians lose a family member of close friend to a drinking-and-driving collision.
After having a couple of drinks herself, Leanne was riding in the passenger seat in a car driven by a sober friend when they were hit by another vehicle running a stop sign.
Their car was sent flying, Leanne was ejected from the vehicle and found on the other side of the road as the only fatality in the collision.
"Leanne's last words were 'I don't think that guy's going to stop,'" said Rudolph, who is now community leader of the Fort St. James chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Rudolph joined the organization about a year after the death of her brother's wife, looking for ways to help support her grieving family members.
According to Rudolph, the driver, a young woman by the name of Chantal Satrum, was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.2 at the time of the crash.
She was charged and convicted with dangerous driving causing death, with alcohol as a mitigating factor after plea bargaining down from impaired driving.
"She spent two-and-a-half years in her living room," Rudolph said.
In place of his then-37-year-old wife Rudolph's brother Daryll now has her first Harley Davidson bike, which sits in his Kingston Street shop, Major Muffler. In the week between his wife's death and funeral, at least 20 people pitched in to finish the restoration work on the bike the woman, nicknamed "Princess," never had the opportunity to ride. Daryll rode the bike, which is now covered with pictures of his wife as the lead in her funeral procession.
Great strides have been made in sanctions against impaired driving, said Rudolph, but they're not enough. She pointed to European countries such as Norway and Sweden that have a zero-tolerance blood-alcohol content law.
"I'm hoping that's what we're working towards here. Then we won't have these challenges," she said.
And with the late November Supreme Court ruling that part of the province's drinking and driving law is unconstitutional, Rudolph said proponents have to go back and rewrite those sanctions.
The court ruled in regard to the Immediate Roadside Prohibition legislation, which allowed police to impose criminal consequences on drivers who failed a breathalyzer test with no opportunities for them to call legal representation to challenge the decision.
Any motorist who blows in the warn range (a blood-alcohol level of between .05 and .08) they face a driving prohibition of three, seven or 30 days and their car may be impounded.
In their capacity as RCMP officers, Douglass said they expect to come across the people who make the wrong decision.
"I'd like to see more of the chronic drunk drivers use [Operation Red Nose]," he said. "It's more the responsible people who are going to call up."
On the first weekend the service operated last month, police still located 12 impaired drivers on Prince George roads.
Operation Red Nose is still looking for volunteers to meet the demand of what's sure to be a busy night on New Year's Eve. Those interested in helping out can apply online at www.ornpg.ca, print off their completed application form and bring it to the Community Policing office at 575 Brunswick St.
