The Virginian-Pilot
©
VIRGINIA BEACH
You're at a bar. Been there for a while, drinking. It's time to head home, but you drove and don't want to leave your car behind. Your friends? They're in the same sorry state.
Now what?
Erin Wilson thinks she's got a solution, a moped.
Wilson, her husband, David, and their partner, Jason Quick, have opened a business aimed at preventing DUIs - or worse. It's called Last Call Designated Drivers.
"A DUI accident is different than any other type of accident," Erin Wilson says, "because it's the most preventable accident there is."
Last Call opened at the end of last month, in time for the holiday party season, and it works like this: The customer calls, preferably about 30 minutes before needing a ride, and Last Call dispatches a person on a moped.
The moped driver meets the person who needs a ride, who just might really question his sobriety when he sees what happens next. David Wilson demonstrated a few days ago, when he pulled up on a neon green Italian moped.
Wilson twisted the handlebars and folded them down, then pushed the seat forward and collapsed the bike onto itself. He folded it into a carrying case, zipped it shut, and stuck the whole thing into the trunk of a VW Jetta. With room to spare.
"That's barely even a challenge," he said.
The bike folds into the size of three bags of groceries.
Then the moped driver drives the tipsy person home in his own car, unfolds the scooter, and drives away. The service costs $30 to anywhere within a zone stretching from the Oceanfront to Town Center, and from Red Mill in the south to Shore Drive in the north.
The Last Call owners had a motorcycle training business in Northern Virginia, sold it and were looking for another venture when they got the idea for the DUI service. They saw a TV show about a moped-based DUI service in London called Scooterman and decided to bring a similar service to Virginia Beach.
David's father was killed in a DUI accident last year, so the venture has a partially personal mission to it.
Last Call has six drivers and 14 mopeds. The company hopes to expand next year into Norfolk and the Peninsula.
"It overcomes all the obstacles," Erin Wilson says, "that have prevented people from making the right decision in the past."
Lon Wagner, (757) 446-2341, lon.wagner@pilotonline.com
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Cool
Pretty cool. Maybe the guy on Sundays front page can use the service. :)
Great idea. The very best of luck on your business....a win-win all around!
jake
I hear what your saying about government intrusion in our lives but I would be interested in hearing why you think it's ok to drive and chat and what your basis is.
They're is nothing nastier or more disgusting
Than a drunk. Good luck on the business though, hopefully it saves a few lives and doesn't cost them theirs.
Easy now.
Outlaw talking on a cell phone? Come on now, don't stop there. Let's include talking to passengers while driving with one hand on the wheel. Better yet, just to be safe, we should outlaw all one-armed people from driving.
Ok, here's my little rant now. Government cannot protect us from everything. But if you want them to try, they are more than ready. And apparently, people are more than ready to vote them the power to do so. Even right now, there are probably many whose job is to just sit there and wait for someone to complain about something so that they can file it away and get the ball rolling. And before you know it, we're so protected that we cannot even add salt to flavor our dinner.
What the average HR citizen would say to this...
...what a bunch of BS. I drive where I want when I want.
I see folks with beer cans in their car cup holders all the time with empty cans on the floorboard on the passenger side.
If they build Downtown Norfolk - Oceanfront Light Rail, you bet that by the time operations cease for the night, the car interiors will be covered in vomit and urine.
dharma41 has it right
The best thing Tidewater could do for transportation is OUTLAW talking on a cell phone while driving. I would like to see a thousand dollar fine for first offense and after that make it really hurt. I hate to be cold but only when enough loved ones of the power brokers get killed by these idiots will this happen.
Just what I would like to do
Spend each night dealing with drunks.
Been done before. . .
This service was on the excellent British show called Top Gear. Welcome to three months ago.
Best of luck
One must appreciate entrepreneurship and ambition. I do. There is no shortage of drunks, I wish your business the best of luck!
whatever it takes
It's a very good idea, and hope people will use the service, and the service needs to be expanded into all area's of Hampton Roads. Best of luck to all involved.