Sunday, February 17, 2013

The price in Japan ~5~ Daikou

  On this column, I tell you about Daikou, which is useful system when
you drink alcohol liquors at town. Needless to say, it is illegal to drive
after you drink. In my hometown, transportation system such as train and
bus is not developed so much. So, people get annoyed when they drink
alcohol liquors at town. If you live in Tokyo, transportation system is
very useful. So, you can go any places you want.
  In my hometown, Gunma, one of the ways to deal with such situation
is to use Daikou(代行). When you make a phone call to the Daikou company,
two people come to the bar or Izakaya(Japanese stylish bar) by driving their
car. And then you ask one of them to drive your car. He drives your car
to your house. You get on the seat next to the driver. (If car navigation system
is not set on your car, you direct the driver to your house.) After you arrive at
your home, you paid money to them. I told you two people come to the place where you
were drinking. The other person drive a car, following your car.
   I drank with my friends last week. At that time, I used a Daiko.
The distance was about 9 km from the Izakaya to my house. I paid 3500 yen
( 28 Euro, 1126.08 RUB, 37.41 USD) Maybe you feel it is expensive.
But if you use taxi, the price would be same. And if you use taxi, you can't
take your car to your home. For Gunma residents, you have to count money
to pay for daikou when you drink.
  On the way to my home, I talked with the driver about his work. He said that
he work from about 5:00 P.M. to about 4:00 A.M. I asked if you can get customers
at midnight. He answered that there are a lot of phone calls until about 3:00 A.M.
They also said that their business depends on the economical condition
of the manufacturing industries in Gunma. Actually, there are a lot of manufacturing
companies in my hometown. A big car industry called Subaru, which is one of the
biggest car industry in Japan has been getting better recently, so they can get
many phone calls from the area where there are  the factories.

  
Thanks for reading!

Facebook page

10 comments:

Tonykaku said...

interesting. although i rarely drink alcohol (i had half a pint of Guinness beer last year in Scotland), i am glad to hear there is an interesting method to reach home safely for you...and your car.

marimari said...

I thought there was not this method in your country. In Japan, it is quite common.

Anonymous said...

I live in the city of Dzerzhinsk near Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. We have such a service in the taxi. Called the "drunk driver." The cost of this service in our city is about 300 rubles ($ 10). In Nizhny Novgorod, and especially in Moscow, can be much more expensive. Unfortunately, not all drunk drivers are using the "drunk driver." Need to make the punishment for it tougher, I think.

marimari said...

To Anonymous
That's interesting.
Does the "drunk driver" come to bar on the taxi? And taxi follows your car like daikou?

Saku said...

As always, this is a really interesting thing about Japan! Thank you for sharing this information! I didn't know there was such a thing... 便利でうね!

marimari said...

To Saku

「便利ですね?」right?
Yes, maybe. But,it is expenxive though. I heard that it is getting more inexpensive nowadays.

Saku said...

Yes... Sorry.. missed the "s" key.. haha
I think the more such a service is used, the more inexpensive it can be. :)

marimari said...

To Saku

Yes, but I heard that the price has got cheaper than before.

Unknown said...

I saw that people who miss the last train often sleep in a "capsule hotel".

So, I wonder: is it forbidden in Japan to sleep in a car? To me, it would be logical to just sleep in the car when you are drunk, then take a shower at your working place the next morning.

(Here in Denmark, many of the work places have a shower room, because many of the employees use bicycles as transport - so we take a quick shower when we arrive at the office)

marimari said...

To Shantal ForSD

We don't usually have such shower room in an office. That's shocking to me.
I have a friend who wants to increase people who go to company by bike. He is doing such kind of social activity. I will tell him about your country.
But my hometown is countryside. We need to drive a car to go to somewhere.