EVANSVILLE — If you’re considering driving home after a night of New Year’s Eve drinking the nonprofit Logan’s Promise hopes you’ll think again and instead utilize its safe ride program.
Beginning at 10 p.m. on Dec. 31, New Year’s Eve revelers in Evansville and neighboring counties can call a Lyft taxi either for free or at a steep discount by using a Logan’s Promise promo code, “SAFERIDE2026,” slashing $25 from the total fare price.
Rides with fares of $25 or less are thus free. Lyft, which like its competitor Uber is an app-based, ride-hailing service, functions like an on-demand taxi.
Founded in honor of 15-year-old Logan Brown, who was killed by a drunk driver in 2015, Logan’s Promise partners with Evansville-area businesses to offer free or discounted rides on major holidays when nights of celebratory, carefree drinking threaten to end in deadly crashes.
Residents of Vanderburgh, Warrick, Posey, and Gibson counties will be eligible to redeem one free or discounted ride home on New Year’s Eve between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m., according to the nonprofit, which stresses that the service intends to get riders home, not to the next bar. Discount codes must be redeemed at the time of use.
The program hopes to prevent the kinds of incidents that claimed Brown’s life in March 2015.
Michael Gann, the driver at fault for that fatal crash, was traveling south on University Parkway when he crossed the grass median into oncoming traffic and struck the vehicle carrying Brown as a passenger, according to city police.
In 2016, Gann pleaded guilty to causing death while operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, among other charges, netting him a 14-year prison sentence. But according to Indiana Department of Corrections records, Gann was released in 2023 after he successfully petitioned the court to reduce his sentence.
Brown’s father, Charles Brown, founded Logan’s Promise in the wake of his son’s death to raise awareness about the dangers of drunk driving, which was to blame for one in five fatal crashes in Vanderburgh County in 2015.
According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, the number of alcohol-related crashes locally has fluctuated in the intervening years. In 2023, the last year with complete NHTSA data, approximately 45.8% of traffic fatalities in Vanderburgh County involved alcohol — more than double the previous year.
But Charles Brown has seen the difference Logan’s Promise can make firsthand. The safe ride program is part of a broader campaign to force drivers to reckon with the consequences of choosing to get behind the wheel while intoxicated. Early in the campaign he got a call from a driver who cited a Logan’s Promise commercial as the deciding factor in him arranging a ride home from a bar.
“This guy gets on the phone and he says, ‘I just want to let you know you’re making a difference in our community,'” Charles Brown told 99.5 WKDQ. “I was at a bar drinking, and I was sitting there letting my truck warm up, and I heard your commercial come on the radio and we decided after listening to the commercial that the choice was mine and that I’m choosing not to drink and drive tonight.”
This New Year’s Eve the Evansville Police Department will also be wrapping up a holiday season enforcement blitz targeting impaired motorists and aggressive driving. Beginning Nov. 26 officers conducted “saturation patrols” and staged sobriety checkpoints in an effort to deter dangerous driving, according to a department news release.
Ahead of the back-to-back Christmas and New Year’s holidays the EPD again implored the public to be mindful of the life-or-death stakes of choosing to drive drunk.
“Call a sober friend, ride share or taxi, or take public transportation to get home safely,” the EPD stated in a public message. “If you’re hosting and see somebody who is about to drive impaired, take their keys and help them get home safely.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Nonprofit offers free Lyft rides on New Year’s Eve in Evansville
Reporting by Houston Harwood, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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