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| Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet Beaulieu’s Garage and Body Shop mechanic and tow-truck driver Rick Canterbury checks to make sure the truck’s set and ready to go for New Year’s Eve, when Beaulieu’s offers free tows for inebriated individuals and their cars to keep Caribou’s streets and citizens safe during the first celebratory occasion of 2012. |
By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Individuals who’ve toasted to the new year a few too many times have had one less reason to get behind the wheel of a car since 1988.
Saturday marks the 24th consecutive year that Beaulieu’s Garage and Body Shop staff have helped prevent drunk driving through Caribou’s streets on New Year’s Eve by volunteering their time and resources to tow inebriated individuals and their vehicles home safely.
“It’s just our way of being thankful of the community that’s supported us over the years,” said Beaulieu’s owner Jeff Robertson.
He first became aware of a then-named T.O.W.E.D program, sponsored and underwritten by a company that made wrecker equipment, at a towing convention he attended.
Robertson so believed in the program’s life-saving nature that Beaulieu’s Garage kept running the event even after the large company stopped sponsoring it.
“At the time, it wasn’t uncommon to see these horrific accidents around the holidays — particularly New Year’s,” Robertson recalled. Being a garage, body shop and providing towing services, Beaulieu’s was often caught up in the sadness that inevitably accompanies that type of accident — particularly when fatality comes into play.
“I thought ‘well this is one thing we could do to help stop this,’ because we had direct relationships to seeing these unhappy times,” Robertson said.
The impact of helping his neighbors and customers get home safely has been pretty big.
“Since we’ve been doing [this program], at least for our community, we’ve had no fatalities,” Robertson said. “Now that’s a whole community effort, between taxis and designated drivers — that’s not us alone — but there’ve been no fatalities since we started participating in this program.”
While local law enforcement personnel keep drunken driving at bay year-round, their presence is unmistakably felt on New Year’s Eve through the breaking dawn of New Year’s Day as they patrol the region in full-force helping to prevent and swiftly stopping any instances of drunk or impaired driving.
“I think the part Jeff does provides an easy way for [people who might otherwise drink and drive] to accommodate their social time without have any fatalities or even any accidents,” said Caribou Police Chief Michael Gahagan.
While Beaulieu’s staff will provide pick-up services at no charge on New Year’s Eve, there is one minor stipulation.
“The car has to be operational,” explained Robertson.
Calls Beaulieu’s gets for New Year’s tows ranges greatly depending where New Year’s falls in the week and, as expected in Aroostook County, the number of calls depends a lot of what the weather’s doing.
“On those cold, hard nights, people just don’t seem to go out,” Robertson noticed.
Mainly, Beaulieu’s provides tows for individuals in the Caribou area, though Beaulieu’s staff will assist a neighboring community if they have the time and the resources to do so.
With a tow services ready and waiting on New Year’s Eve, anyone who’s raised their glass to 2012 too many times is encouraged to call Beaulieu’s Garage at 492-2471.
