Drivers in need – Taxi service takes your car home with you

The Czech Republic leads the world in responsible motoring, with a zero-tolerance drunk-driving law. At around 160 liters (42 gallons) per person each year, the Czech Republic also leads the world in the consumption of beer. Put them together and what do you get? Some great nonalcoholic brews, for one (see Beer Culture, April 2-8, 2003). And an interesting service called Drink S.O.S.
Drink S.O.S.

Tel. 267 913 171, 604 707 070, 603 452 529

Here’s the scenario: You’re out on the town and you’ve had too many martinis to drive safely. You could call a taxi to take you home, but then you’d have to fetch your car the next day — or, in the case of a really bad hangover, perhaps the day after that. Instead, you call Drink S.O.S., and in about 20 minutes a driver will show up wherever you are in a beat-up Fiat Panda.

Don’t worry: The Panda’s not for you. Accompanying the driver of the Fiat will be a passenger — actually, a second driver. You give the keys to this person and get in your own car. The driver drives you home while the Fiat follows your car. Once you’re home safely, the drivers are off in the Fiat to aid another intoxicated motorist.

“It’s like having a chauffeur, really,” says one of our confidential informants. “I use it all the time — they know me by my first name.”

Drink S.O.S. costs 30 Kc (about $1.20) per kilometer (0.62 mile). That’s scarcely more than a taxi ride, with the bonus of getting to see the city from an unusual perspective — your own passenger seat. It’s been riffed on in Czech movies such as Devcatko, in which a character performs a cut-rate version of the service, taking the bus to drivers in need. But you don’t have to be a movie star to be chauffeured around the city. You simply need to remember the phone number for Drink S.O.S.
Evan Rail can be reached at erail@praguepost.com

The Prague Post, By Evan Rail – Staff Writer