Prince George, B.C. – Operation Red Nose Prince George has completed another Christmas holiday season safe ride campaign and once again has had great success in getting partiers and their vehicles home safely.

Spokesperson Andrea Johnson says the local campaign topped the 1,000-ride mark for the sixth consecutive year due, in part, to the 209 safe rides that were delivered New Year’s Eve.  Over the nine nights of this year’s campaign 1,059 rides were provided. 

A total of 99 volunteers, including 35 road teams, travelled 5,646 kilometres to ring in 2016.

“We’re pretty happy with the way Thursday night unfolded, especially since we made the decision to stay within city limits for the last four hours of the night,” said Johnson. “The wait times for clients to receive a ride were minimal, maybe only 30 minutes and clients were surprised at how quickly we got to them.”

After putting the call out for more volunteers earlier in the week, 15 more people signed up allowing for six more teams to hit the road.

“The new volunteers made a huge difference in terms of number of rides we were able to provide,” said Johnson. “We’re grateful to the Prince George RCMP for approving the volunteers’ criminal record checks in a matter of days leading into Thursday. We appreciate all of our volunteers who helped us out this year, several of whom came out for all nine nights. Without them, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are.”

The 1,059 rides is the third best in the 18-year history of Operation Red Nose in Prince George, where a record number of rides were provided in 2010 (1,123), a number which was equalled in 2014. In 2012, 1,084 safe rides were delivered.

Over the course of nine nights in this campaign, 207 teams travelled a total of 29,666 kms.

Volunteers and sponsors will be recognized at an appreciation dinner on Saturday, Jan. 16th.