Budweiser and Lyft hook up to give free rides to folks who are drunk

By Bruce Brown September 14, 2016

budweiser lyft weekend drunk ride coupons budweiserlyft giveadamn — Image used with permission by copyright holder

With 10,000 drunk-driving fatalities each year, anything that reduces those numbers is a good thing. Anheuser-Busch, the largest American beer-selling company by sales, is partnering with ridesharing service provider Lyft to provide free rides on the weekends for people who’ve had too much to drink, according to Venture Beat.

The program starts this Friday, September 16 and lasts through the end of December. Each weekend, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., Budweiser is paying for coupons good for up to $10 for up to 5,000 rides per weekend. The program is only good in New York (the whole state, not just the city), Colorado, Illinois, and Florida. Those states are in the program because of their rankings within the top 10 states for drunk driving fatalities — and they’re also big markets for Budweiser and Lyft.

“Drunk driving is 100-percent preventable. We want to celebrate people who ‘give a damn’ and arm them with easy ways to get home safely,” said Anheuser-Busch VP of corporate social responsibility Katja Zastrow.

Each weekend, you can go to Budweiser’s or Lyft’s Facebook and Twitter accounts to find redeemable coupon codes (you only get one coupon per weekend). When you get the code — which hopefully won’t be too hard to find if you’re not sober, but you can retrieve it ahead of time — you’ll be sent to a site to claim your ride. The $10 coupon credit is put in your Lyft account.

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“By giving passengers access to 5,000 free rides each week, we hope everyone will think twice before getting behind the wheel after drinking and look to Lyft as a solution,” said Oliver Hsiang, Lyft’s vice president of partnerships.

According to Venture Beat, the purpose of the partnership combines an effort to reduce drunk-related fatalities while also “celebrating beer drinking.”

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