App’s partnership with McDonald’s lets safe drivers earn free food

Safe 2 Save CEO Marci Corry (right) poses with Jacqueline Fortune, director of community engagement for Harris County Sheriff's Office (center right), The Hamburgler, Karla Cisneros, Houston City Council member, and HSCO intern Jamal Jolivet (left) during the event announcing McDonald's partnering with Safe 2 Save. less Safe 2 Save CEO Marci Corry (right) poses with Jacqueline Fortune, director of community engagement for Harris County Sheriff's Office (center right), The Hamburgler, Karla Cisneros, Houston City Council ... more Photo: Chevall Pryce Photo: Chevall Pryce Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close App’s partnership with McDonald’s lets safe drivers earn free food 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Drivers across Houston now have the chance to earn free McDonald’s menu items just by keeping their eyes on the road.

Safe 2 Save, a safe driving app that aims to stop distracted driving, has partnered with all Houston-area McDonald’s locations, allowing users to exchange points for menu items including Big Macs, hash browns and sausage burritos. The partnership applies to more than 300 locations in Houston.

Safe 2 Save users earn two points for every minute they are driving without using their phone while going at least 10 mph. They can then redeem points for discounts and deals on food, entertainment and retail. In addition to businesses, Safe 2 Save has partnered with organizations and local school districts, including Cy-Fair and Klein ISDs, to encourage safe driving.

During a June 24 press conference at McDonald’s on Studemont Street in Houston, Safe 2 Save founder and CEO Marci Corry said the partnership is another way to spread the influence of Safe 2 Save to a wider audience. Corry said this is one of the largest partnerships Safe 2 Save has with a business in the area.

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“People often don’t realize they’re 23 times more likely to crash when you text and drive and it’s preventable,” Corry said. “This is the highest preventable death in Houston for people under the age of 54. In order for us to impact this giant issue that is truly causing one of every five fatalities, we need giant influencers like McDonald’s that are amazing and hip.”

Steve McKinney, owner and operator of multiple Houston-area McDonald’s and former Houston Texans player, said he believes the mission of Safe 2 Save, preventing distracted driving, is a valuable cause. Chick-Fil-A, Peli Peli and Dave and Busters are some of the other businesses that partner with Safe 2 Save.

“Ultimately our goal is for the only time people use their phones while driving is when they’re safely at a McDonald’s drive-thru using points from the Safe 2 Save app,” McKinney said. “Thank you for the honor of being a part of this process. We’re excited to be about something that’s really going to make the streets safer for parents and business people.”

Sgt. James Wood with the Houston Police Department presented statistics on distracted driving while praising the app for helping citizens, himself included, stay off their phones. Wood said there were more than 540,000 motor vehicle crashes in 2018, 95,000 of which were caused by distracted driving.

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“Those 95,000 distracted driving crashes resulted in almost 400 deaths,” Wood said. “Driving is a divided attention exercise in itself that requires your full attention. When we’re doing something on the phone ... something is going to be lacking in our driving capabilities. That’s why the stats I just quoted to you were so high and they’re preventable.”

Karla Cisneros, member of the Houston City Council, said she hopes Houston can be a pioneer for better, more attentive driving around the nation.

“When you’re driving down the road and you glance away just for a second to look at your cell phone, that could be life changing or life ending,” Cisneros said. “McDonald’s is all over our city and they’re still embedded in our culture and in our neighborhoods and I’m very grateful for them. I’m really hopeful that Houston will set an example for the rest of our nation.”

chevall.pryce@chron.com