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Personal driver services growing as drinkers avoid driving

Date Posted: Fri, Mar 14 2014, Sun Sentinel
Sometimes you don't even know your designated driver.

More people are deciding to hire a personal driving service for work, errands and safe partying, particularly on occasions like St. Patrick's Day.

Although taxis are always available, driver services will get you a driver for the evening or pick you up from a bar or restaurant, whether you call when you need it or make arrangements in advance. And, unlike taxis, they'll take your car home, too.

"We have heard from a lot of these companies. They are increasing," said Dave Pinsker, Florida executive director of MADD, a national non-profit that seeks to stop drunken driving.

Pinsker identified three personal driving services in South Florida — RedCap, Be My Designated Driver and White Glove Drivers — and a fourth, Shuttle Dudes, has opened to serve parts of Palm Beach County.

Fort Lauderdale-based RedCap provided drivers for about 50,000 people in 2013, 50 percent more than the year before, according to founder and CEO David Zwick.

Less than half of the business is related to drinking, he said. More often, the callers are people such as seniors who can no longer drive, executives who want to work while they ride and people who are having their cars repaired.

Revenues of the privately held company total "several million dollars" a year, Zwick said. RedCap has operated in Florida for three years, opened in San Francisco six months ago and has plans to expand to Los Angeles and New York areas.

The bulk of RedCap's business remains in South Florida, where the company has 600 independent drivers, Zwick said.

A Cleveland-based service, Be My Designated Driver — known as BeMyDD — saw its South Florida orders grow by 148 percent from 2012 to 2013, said Alexa Milkovich, co-founder.

"Customers are really seeing a need for the service in that area," she said. BeMyDD operates in more than 70 cities nationwide.

Milkovich said BeMYDD urges members to plan ahead and gives an incentive by offering a personal driver for $16 an hour round-trip, if arranged in advance. Pickup service costs more.

"Most people know they're going to a bar, especially on St. Patrick's Day," she said.

Two newcomers to the business are Shuttle Dudes, a Delray Beach-based service, and White Glove Drivers in Deerfield Beach, which launched in November in the tri-county area to offer an "upscale" experience, focusing on executives.

Shuttle Dudes' 24-year-old founder, Ron Prassas, a graduate of Lynn University in Boca Raton, saved money from his day job as a butler and founded the service about a year ago. Shuttle Dudes operates from Boynton Beach to Deerfield Beach. A driver takes the customer home in his own vehicle, followed by another driver in a Shuttle Dudes' Smart car to pick up the first driver.

Prassas leaves fliers with bartenders in downtown Delray Beach, who he said are happy to refer customers to the service.

Marcello Buruiana, general manager of The Office restaurant and bar in Delray Beach, said he supports Shuttle Dudes' concept. But he points out that driver services compete with "hundreds of taxi cabs, which have a larger presence today in downtown Delray."

Driving-service customers are asked to sign liability waivers in case of an accident. Drivers must have their own insurance, the services say.

Prassas said he occasionally has a customer who is "way too intoxicated" to sign the waiver, which the driver also signs for confirmation. Then a taxi is called to take the customer home.

Beyond the business opportunity, company founders said they have altruistic reasons for offering a driver service.

Florida recorded nearly 700 drunken-driving deaths in 2012, the latest statistics available. That figure rose 4 percent from the year before and represented about 30 percent of all traffic deaths.

Some 12,000 people were injured in alcohol-related crashes, according to 2012 data collected by MADD.

Prassas knew a student who was killed in a drunken-driving related accident and had a friend who was charged with driving under the influence. He is trying to build awareness among his younger generation about safe drinking.

Zwick said he was looking for a business that was socially responsible. Also, he has a 15-year-old son who will soon get his driver's license.

"I don't want him doing he same things many of us did when beginning to drive," he said.

White Gloves founder Sandra Ramirez said she recalls when her father, an occasional drinker, got a DUI on New Year's Eve. She had to drive him to the mandated educational classes and to court.

Later, she found out that a designated driver service was common in South America. She attended a wedding in Bogota, Colombia, and "before we went into the reception, they had a line of drivers asking whether we wanted a designated driver after the wedding."In this country, drivers often are distracted by using their mobile phones while driving. Ramirez is tailoring her service toward executives who want to work while in their car, not drive.

When she was a human resources executive, she was driving to meetings while taking conference calls and trying to check e-mail.


"I wish I had had a driver," she said.

mpounds@tribune.com or 561-243-6650

Personal driver services in South Florida

These services offer a driver for a customer's personal vehicle, either round trip or pickup from a designated location.

RedCap: $20-$50 monthly membership, depending on level of use, with $33 an hour for personal driver round trip; for one direction, $2.75 a minute with $25 minimum. Membership-free service planned.

BeMyDD: $25 membership fee a year; $16 an hour for a personal driver for an evening; $25 an hour for pickup service plus $2.95 a mile for first 10 miles, $2.45 for additional miles.

Shuttle Dudes: No membership fee; $20 an hour for the first 5 miles, plus $2 for additional miles, between Boynton Beach and Deerfield Beach; or $25 an hour for five hours or more in the tri-county area.

White Glove Drivers: $10 monthly membership fee for anyone in household; $25 an hour round trip or $25 an hour pickup, plus $2.25 a mile one-way for members, $33 an hour round trip or $30 an hour pickup, plus $2.50 an hour one-way for non-members.