How A Good Samaritan Was Arrested For Driving Drunks Home

Jonathon Schoenakase of Quincy, Illinois was arrested last Saturday outside a local bar. His crime? Operating "Courtesy Rides" — a service offering free rides to bar-goers to prevent drunk driving. The reason? Taxi companies lobbied to make it illegal.

Schoenakase began operating Courtesy Rides on January 31, 2008 following a decision to do something about drunk driving after one of his friends was killed by a drunk driver. The service offers free rides to anyone who's been out drinking and needs a ride home, donations are accepted, but it's free to all. It was such a success Jonathan added a second car to the effort in 2009, then a bus, and that's when Diamond Cab service took notice.

They complained to the city that Schoenakase was operating a de facto taxi service without a proper license, but in reality they were mad he was cutting into their profits by offering for free what the Diamond was charging for. Amusingly, he was probably hitting a different demographic, cheapskates who don't want to pay for taxis but want to get home so they drink and drive, but that's beside the point. The cab company complained loud enough that the Quincy City Council changed its taxi and limousine ordinance to remove the words "for hire" from its definitions and thus eliminate the loophole Schoenakase was operating under. Following the change, Jonathan applied for a license and the Chief of Police was supposedly about to approve it, but withdrew and said Schoenakase needed to clear up some legal issues.

Since then Schoenakase has continued operating Courtesy Rides and has been arrested twice now during sting operations, once in February and then again just last Saturday.

We understand the police are just following the law, but this entire situation stinks like a three-days-worn t-shirt off a drunk's back. A guy goes out of his way to reduce drunk driving in his town, an effort he's doing to honor his dead friend, and the city shuts him down at the behest of a taxi company. Real nice work there. If nothing else how about just give the guy his $10 license and be done with all this pointless nonsense. [Sources: Quincy News, Connect TriStates, WHIG]

http://jalopnik.com/5604559/how-one-...ng-drunks-home

Pretty fucked up. The city doesn't want to lose DUI revenues. The taxi lobbyists are in their pockets. And they're knowingly and in good conscience stopping a guy from helping reduce drunk driving, when he is harming nobody! This is the kind of shit I would expect from D3v.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMHTj...eature=related

I suppose they'll also have to start arresting people who drive home friends they met at the bar?

Giving grandma a ride to the grocery store would be illegal under this law, I suspect.

This is the kind of shit I would expect from D3v.

I've actually lost two friends from a drunk driver, so you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. I don't see the need to dig, I think the free taxi service is a wonderful idea.

I was actually just seeing if you'd skip the entire contents of the thread and get defensive about a minor quip. Thanks for living up to my expectations!

So you expected me to maturely respond and denounce your trolling?

This story would've been capped off nicely to hear about him actually obtaining a license and telling the Taxi company to go 'f' themselves, but I guess we can't be that lucky. Maybe you could update us on this if anything changes?

This story would've been capped off nicely to hear about him actually obtaining a license and telling the Taxi company to go 'f' themselves, but I guess we can't be that lucky. Maybe you could update us on this if anything changes?

From what I've read, he is basically taking a civil disobedience approach and continuing the free service. He says it's worth breaking the law to save lives, and I would tend to agree with him.

This is one of the few times I would actually be happy if MADD got involved. I normally hate those stupid bitches, but they would probably be pretty pissed about this situation. Or they would just try to shut down the bars.

Why does it feel like so much chaos is going on with us, lately? Has it always been like this, where laws are stupid, and need to be broke? It's crazy.
To say the least, I don't think he should've been arrested. It sounds completely illogical. If I'm right, it's all over money, huh? The taxi company made this law, or did I miss something?

No, they lobbied for it. They asked for something to be done, and the 'genius' politicians devised this clever design. It won't be long before this is abused by cops who need to meet a quota.

Why does it feel like so much chaos is going on with us, lately? Has it always been like this, where laws are stupid, and need to be broke? It's crazy.

To some degree, I think there has been an increase over the last few years/decades, but it also has to do with the fact that we no longer get our news from newspapers, but rather from the internet/TV/etc where you know same-day when something has happened, and there's a much larger pool of news to view.