Uber splurges $1 million on free rides for pubgoers

THEY may have whacked a delivery fee onto UberEats, but the ride sharing giant is making up for it with the ultimate splurge.

Uber is offering free rides to help drinkers get home safely over summer.

THEY may have whacked a delivery fee onto UberEats, but the ride sharing giant is making up for it with $1 million worth of festive freebies.

In partnership with DrinkWise, Uber is handing out more than $1 million worth of free rides over summer to punters at hundreds of licensed venues in Sydney and Melbourne.

Promotional staff will hand out vouchers at pubs, clubs and bars throughout December and January, to be used on the night or at another time as needed.

The company announced the initiative on Thursday while unveiling the results of a survey it commissioned, which showed that almost two in five riders had used the app to help them avoid drink driving.

“The same study found eight in 10 Australians say they would be less likely to drink drive if they knew they could get a ride at any time of the day or night,” a company spokesman said.

“When people have a reliable way to get home safely at the push of a button — no matter the time or place — they make better, safer choices.”

Now Uber is aiming to prevent hundreds of thousands more people from getting behind the wheel after a night on the booze.

With up to 30 per cent of road deaths caused by drink driving — and the Christmas break one of the peak seasons for fatal crashes — it could be a life saver.

DrinkWise chief executive John Scott said it was “reassuring” that punters saw Uber as an alternative to driving while intoxicated, and hoped the partnership would help encourage more Australians to drink responsibly.

“Knowing that over summer people tend to loosen up and get together with family and friends, whether it be at a barbecue or meeting at the pub or wherever, we tend to drink a bit more and so we thought it was quite an ideal fit because it allows consumers to have another option in terms of getting home, not getting behind the wheel of a car,” Mr Scott said.

“Sometimes we might be catching up with people and be expecting to have only one or two drinks but find we get caught up in the moment and have more than perhaps we wanted to.”

The responsible drinking advocacy group first partnered with the ride sharing company during Melbourne’s spring racing carnival, supplying racegoers with bottled water while they waited for a ride at a specially designed Uber marquee at Flemington.

Harm reduction messages from its Drinking — Do It Properly campaign, which “encourage people to drink in more responsible and classy ways”, will be pushed out to Uber users via the app.

Canberrans will get discounted rides home under an Uber partnership with the ACT Government, which will give users of the capital’s NightRider bus service up to $10 off a ride to complete their journey from the drop-off area to their door.

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Originally published as Uber splurges $1 million on free rides for pubgoers