Sunday, January 13, 2008

Drunk Driver Rescue

The repost below inspired me to finally write this up.

I snapped this picture weeks ago when I was on my way home.

This flier was on the sidewalk.

This flier was on a car.

I was in the Gwanghwamun/Jongno area of the city near my home. It's a picture of an flier from a business that people can call when they're too drunk to drive their car home. The name is "Kind Driver". Note the real easy number 080-888-8888. You've got to be damn drunk NOT to remember that.

This flier was along the renovated Cheonggyecheon stream area. There are tons of drinking establishments for the hard working businessmen and women that work in the area. And, believe me, drinking is a popular pastime in Korea, so this 대리은전 service is needed.

Since the area is en route from Ewha to my home, I went through it almost nightly when I was at Ewha. When you walk around you'll see fliers put on cars and scattered on the sidewalk.

You call them. They'll come out and drive your drunken self home in your own car. That way you don't have to worry about remembering where you left your car or coming back to retrive your car.

I've only experienced it once. I used to drive up from Jochiwon to Seoul every couple of weeks when I taught at Seochang campus of Korea University (yep, I've finally revealed it.) It would always be a pretty intense weekend. This was a weekend in November because it was the weekend of a friends annual Thanksgiving party. There is always a lot of food and a lot of liquor on hand. This particular year it was held in the Hongdae, Hongik University, area of town and Hongdae IS a party zone. My friend, being smart, hired a driver for his little Daewoo Matiz car. It was great. We partied carefree into the wee hours. The driver showed up, dropped off one of my friends at her place and got me and my friend back to his place safely. It was also a lot of fun because the driver was a chatty guy and we were happy drunks. I can't imagine how bad the job can be if you're stuck with a mean or completely out of it drunk.

It's a great idea. I don't think it would work in the US as it does here simply because there is so much violent crime. I wouldn't trust calling a number left on my car in metro L.A. However, maybe marketing could be different in the States. Maybe bars and restaurants could have partnerships with business that provided drivers for drunks.

Someone get on that. Make a lot of money and save some lives doing it.

Hell, scratch that, I'll move home and I'll do it ;-)

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6 comments:

  1. Yeah, well, I wish more people here would make those calls. Hey, have a nice time while you're out here visiting your folks!

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  2. Yea, I agree. I mean the stories of dumb ass drunk celebs too stupid to call a driver annoy me. I'm glad to give press to one who does make the call.

    For those people, celebs or not, who don't make arrangements to get their drunk asses home means that they're caring way more about themselves than the safety of those around them. They're suffering from a clear case of "I don't give a crap."

    Drinking is crazy here. I'm glad they have something in place to make it so that drunk people aren't stranded in these areas out late with no way to get home but drive.

    Thanks. I look forward to visiting home. I haven't been home in a few years. But, unfortunately, my folks passed away years ago. I'll be visiting friends and extended family (I don't think of them as my folks...no offense y'all but I don't). I was very close to my parents, so I reserve that term for them only ;)

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  3. This is available in Canada - I've been listening to some radio stations out of Ottawa and there were several ads for this especially around New Years...

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  4. They probably have some version of it in the States too. It's just that it's not common knowledge, so when your Average Joe or Average Jane is fall down drunk they can get some help.

    I'm glad to hear it's in Ottawa and there are adverts for it.

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  5. this is a program that a guy i went to high school with started in my home town. hopefully more stuff like this will start popping up in more places.

    bender defenders

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  6. That's cool to know. I'll click over for business plan tips ;-)

    But seriously. That's very cool.

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