Cards ensure safe rides home

TAMPA - Car crashes and the accompanying human suffering sparked an idea for Tampa Police officer to try to spare others from the heartbreak.

Perry Anderson remembers when his cousin's son, who had just turned 21, got into a head-on crash after drinking, driving, and falling asleep at the wheel.

The 21-year-old survived, and Anderson says his cousin started calling cab companies.

"He said 'I'm going to give 'em all a hundred dollars, so that way I'm prepaying for a ride home for my son,' and I thought what parent wouldn't do that for their kid? Who wouldn't prepay for a ride home to make sure their loved one got home safely?" Anderson said.

The Home Safe card was born. It's only good for transportation, and it comes in $25 prepay denominations. You can buy it online, and if the testimonials are any indication, it really does work.

Greg Todd says he recently took his card on a South Tampa night out.

"After having a few drinks, we wanted to go to another bar," Todd said. "But we didn't want to drink, so we used the Home Safe card to get us from one bar to the next, and then at the end of the night, we decided to use the card again, to get us home."

With Hillsborough County leading the state in DUI crashes, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving love the Home Safe card.

"We want to save lives", says MADD's Linda Unfried, who lost her sister to a drunk driver. "That's what MADD is all about, saving lives. And this is a great way to do it. Its going to help us to eliminate drunk driving, I believe."

The next thing for the Home Safe card is buses. HARTline is in talks to add Discover cards to their on-board systems. Anderson is also hoping to soon have the cards right there with gift cards in stores.

For now though, they're only available online at www.homesafecard.com .