Clich here to see an interactive slideshow on the the PDQ Taxi Service
Riding in a cab for free doesn't happen very often. That is unless you happen to be riding with Pretty Darn Quick taxi service from noon until 3 a.m., seven days a week, when one can get a ride from their home to more than 20 different bars in the Muncie area. The service started Aug. 21 and runs until Sept. 18. PDQ offers rides from home to the bar, and, once there, drives patrons to any of the other bars that have contributed to the fund that is supplying five cabs for students and local residents to make the rounds. And then home.
"On the weekends it's mostly students, but through the week it's a lot of regulars," PDQ driver Clayton Conley said.
While the service is scheduled to run until mid-September, it will be evaluated and perhaps continue on for six months, or an entire year, Conley said.
"It's a work in progress," Conley said as the dispatch called out who needed to be picked up and dropped off. The new system PDQ taxi service is for patronsfor has looking for a drink or two without having to worry about getting behind the wheel. The free service is paid for with of money supplied by the Delaware County Licensed Beverage Association.
The free rides are helping the Ball State and Muncie police departments out by keeping drunk drivers off the road and keeping other drivers safe, Ball State University director of public safety Gene Burton said.
"Any service that has the potential to keep drunk drivers off the road and to keep drunks from getting behind the wheel is a good thing," he said.
PDQ Taxi has six vehicles to run on any given night, and they are mostly vans. The vans accommodate parties with more than what an average car could hold and can make a trip to the airport or grocery store for patrons if needed.
In its second weekend of service, PDQ received about 400 calls from people needing rides, which poses a bit of a problem as riders may have to wait up to 40 minutes to get where they want to go, PDQ co-owner Brad Luttrell said.
"It's not that we don't have the drivers, it's that we don't have enough vehicles," he said.
Conley has been driving a cab for the last 12 years and has seen the decline in people wanting to go out because of having to drive or pay for cab fare.
Conley passes out business cards, fliers and is pushing that everyone should know about the new service that PDQ and the Bar Association is offering. He is as much a salesman for this service as he is a driver, he said.
Picking up students from home and taking them to the bar isn't anything new for Conley, but the fact that it's now free is something that seemingly everyone he talks to while on the road should know about, he said.
"There's still a lot of people that don't know about us. I don't know how; (it's on) the radio, the newspaper, the Internet, you know," Conley said.
If the patrons haven't heard of it when they enter the car they certainly have by the time they exit, Conley said. For the people that have, the word of mouth advertising they have done is doing wonders.
The number of calls more than doubled the weekend the service started for rides to go the bars and is expected to continue to grow as the service continues.
"It's a working thing, and it will only get better with time," Conley said.
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