We got a nice little mention in the Wall St. Journal this week
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1030481469229503435.djm,00.html



August 28, 2002


PERSONAL JOURNAL

To Shuttle Kids, Busy Parents
Seek Out Chauffeur Services

By RON LIEBER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL




Working parents have deftly outsourced cooking, cleaning and yardwork. But one chore is proving tougher to unload: the carpool.

A parent's fantasy service -- door-to-door rides from home to school to soccer practice and back -- does exist in some areas. For about $200 a month for daily transport, scores of kiddie-cab companies dispatch vans to shuttle children around. The services are popular in the bustling suburbs of California and Colorado, but they've also succeeded in places like Gainesville, Fla., and Columbus, Neb.


Outsourcing your carpool: Kidz Karz totes little commuters around Boulder, Colo.


With names like Kids on Wheels and Beeline Shuttle, the companies promise seatbelts at every seat, drivers who've passed criminal background checks and long lists of rules to enforce backseat order. States often require these services to carry a hefty amount of insurance coverage. And nabbing a spot in the vans can be tough. Kidshuttle, based in California's Orange County, has 20 vans, 400 families as clients and another 500 families on the waiting list. Other services don't even bother counting the number they turn away.

It may sound like a sure-fire business, but kiddie cab companies frequently flame out after underestimating the logistics of route-planning. Or the wear and tear of demanding parents. Michael Newton ran a Kids Kab franchise for several years in Cookeville, Tenn., but gave it up last year. Now he works with freight, instead of children. "It wasn't the kids who were the problem," he says. "It was the moms. The phone would ring at 11 or 12 at night and five in the morning, with changes on top of changes."

One thing that's driving demand: The trusty school bus isn't so reliable anymore. Many districts have cut back on bus service or stopped picking up kids who live within a couple of miles of school. And few, if any, school buses will take a child to an afternoon doctor's appointment one day and piano lessons the next.

With demand far oustripping supply, many families are scrambling to jury-rig other commuting solutions, including hiring private drivers and pleading for help on local Web sites.

The shift to private chauffeur services has generated some safety concerns. A new study by an arm of the National Research Council found that passenger vehicles -- whether driven by parents or paid drivers -- were more dangerous than buses on trips to and from school. The vehicles had 490 injuries per 100 million student trips -- or nearly fives times more than school buses did.

And three years ago, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that states require any vehicle that carries more than 10 kids to and from school to meet the same safety standards as school buses. Since then, some states have toughened rules for large vans that transport students. Other states are considering similar actions.

Meantime, parents are trying to find some set of wheels that works. For a year, Susan Kincaid, a single mother in Gainesville, Fla., used her hour-long lunch break to dash across town at 2 p.m., pick her 14-year-old daughter up from school and bring her home. She had to wolf down lunch at the wheel. Then she tried Kids on Wheels. "It's been a blessing," says Ms. Kincaid, who now drives her daughter, Katie, to school and pays $100 per month to have her driven home.

In Boulder, Colo., Christine LaMar pays about $550 a month for her three children to be driven 15 minutes to and from their Catholic school. She uses Kidz Karz, a seven-year-old service that operates with military precision. Almost all of its service is scheduled. It accepts credit cards, charges fees for no-shows, and will kick kids out who refuse to wear their seatbelts. But it hires drivers with a soft side, too. "They'll hand out candy if the kids are behaving," says owner Deborah O'Gara-Schultz.

Some parents, unable to find a children's transport service in their area, have sought creative ways to outsource the carpool. They cast about for local drivers who can pick kids up on an ad hoc basis. John Fossetta, an ex-limousine driver who is now a postman, works as a driver in his spare time along with a business partner. For a while, Mr. Fossetta did a regular run, shuttling two boys between the houses of their divorced parents.

To find people like Mr. Fossetta, some parents go begging on the Web. Last week, there were two plaintive posts on silentfrog.com1, a matchmaking service for people with odd jobs and those who do them, from parents seeking drivers for their children. The site, which launched in Washington and has since spread elsewhere, has seen dozens of similar requests since it started last year.

Then there's Abby Polin, a Chicago mortgage broker. She tried driving her daughter to her suburban school each day, but it was eating up eight hours a week. Then she figured she was losing more money missing work than she would spend for a car service, though it cost more than $3,000 a school year.

Now her daughter commutes with several other school kids. The chariot? Says Ms. Polin, "A big black stretch limousine comes and picks her up every day."

Write to Ron Lieber at ron.lieber@wsj.com2


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Everybody Into the (Car) Pool
Busy parents are seeking out chauffeur services for their children. Here are some of the options.

Name/Location Cost Features
Kidshuttle
Orange County, Calif. Forty-five round-trips per month cost $382.50 (must be less than 10 miles each) Drivers know CPR and first-aid, and satisfied parents can invest in the company (the offering memorandum is on the companyÕs Web site).
Kids on Wheels
Gainesville, Fla. $220 per month for daily round-trips Older kids get to bring their own CDs along for the ride, but if they misbehave, the Barney tape goes on the stereo.
Kiddie Cab
Columbus, Neb. $30 per week for daily round-trips Riders get after-school snacks, including granola bars and Rice Krispies treats. Kids get presents on their birthdays, too.
Kidz Karz
Boulder, Colo. area Depends on mileage, since some vans take kids an hour each way to schools in Denver Will take kids to the orthodontist for midday appointments for $5 to $10.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1030481469229503435.djm,00.html


Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://silentfrog.com/services/welcome.jsp
(2) mailto:ron.lieber@wsj.com

Updated August 28, 2002





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