Designated driver service, for you and your own car.

What a designated driver service should mean when you own a fine car

A designated driver service exists for one simple reason: the person who owns the car should not be the person driving it home tonight. RydeBack takes that idea and shapes it around owners of luxury and exotic cars. We send two vetted chauffeurs instead of one. The first drives your own car to your home, garage or hotel. The second chauffeur looks after you and your guests in a RydeBack car. Nobody stands on a kerb waiting for a taxi, and your car never spends the night in a venue car park.

A conventional arrangement usually means one driver who reaches you by taxi, transit or a folding scooter, then drives you home in your own vehicle. For plenty of people that is a sensible answer. It becomes awkward when the car is a twelve-cylinder grand tourer with a snug cabin, when friends need dropping at three different addresses, or when you would rather not share a small cockpit with a stranger at one in the morning. It also leaves an open question about who is responsible for the car, and how anyone would prove what happened to it.

Our answer is a two-car, two-chauffeur model backed by a written custody record. You get a designated chauffeur for the car and a separate one for the people, and you can follow both from your phone.

How our designated driver service works, from venue to garage

Every booking follows the same sequence, whichever city you are in. The steps are enforced in the chauffeurs' app, so they happen in the same order every time.

1. You reserve and pay in full. Tell us the pickup address, where you are going, where the car is going, and its make and model. There is no deposit.
2. Both chauffeurs come as a pair. You receive their names once they are assigned and a message when they set off.
3. Identity is confirmed with a PIN. The handover only proceeds once your PIN matches the one the chauffeur holds.
4. Your key is sealed. It goes straight into a numbered, signal-blocking Faraday pouch, and the seal number is sent to you.
5. The car is filmed and photographed. A walk-around of every panel, the wheels, the interior and the dashboard goes into your private evidence vault before the car moves.
6. Two cars, two routes. Chauffeur 1 drives your car directly to its destination. Chauffeur 2 takes you and your guests wherever you are heading.
7. Drop-off is recorded as well. The car is filmed again on arrival, and the key is released only after a PIN-confirmed handover to you or the person you nominated.

Along the way you get an email or text at each milestone: assigned, en route, keys secured, departed, arrived and keys returned. The same status shows live in the RydeBack web app. Photos and video stay in your vault for 12 weeks. The full method is set out on how we protect your vehicle.

Three ways to travel home with your designated chauffeurs

Not every night ends the same way, so the service has three modes. You pick one when you book, and each is compared on our service options overview.

• Split. The default. You and your guests ride in the RydeBack car while chauffeur 1 drives your car to its destination. Afterwards, the RydeBack car collects chauffeur 1.
• Ride in your own car. If you would rather sit in your own back seat, chauffeur 1 drives you in it and chauffeur 2 follows as a chase car, then takes chauffeur 1 back. It costs the same as split.
• Different destinations. Your car goes to one address, perhaps a secure garage across town, while you go to another. Chauffeur 1 then makes their own way back by taxi or rideshare. We estimate that fare and include it upfront, then settle it to the receipt at cost, never more than 25% above the estimate.

Whichever you choose, the custody steps are identical. The mode only changes who sits where.

A sober driver service held to a chauffeur's standard

A sober driver is only as good as the vetting behind them. Every RydeBack chauffeur goes through city approval, a criminal background check, a driving-record check, an interview and a supervised assessment drive before taking a booking. Exotic and high-value cars are assigned to a professional tier of chauffeurs assessed for them, so the person collecting a mid-engined supercar is not meeting one for the first time on your night out.

Before the first trip we check that you own the car or are authorised to drive it, using its registration document and your photo ID. While your car is moving, our operations console tracks its speed and route and is alerted to any unplanned stop or lost signal.

Each booking records the make and model, and that detail decides who is sent. You can read how chauffeurs join and are assessed on our chauffeurs page.

We arrange commercial insurance for the service and confirm the details with you at booking. We do not quote coverage figures here, because the confirmation you receive is the document that matters.

Designated driver service in our five launch cities

RydeBack is live in five cities, each priced in local currency. Every city page lists the neighbourhoods, airports, marinas and venues we cover.

• Designated driver service in Toronto: CA$180 per chauffeur-hour plus CA$7 per km. From November to April, supercars on summer tyres are not driven in snow; we take you home in split mode and leave the car secure for collection on a clearer day.
• Designated driver in Miami: US$125 per chauffeur-hour plus US$5 per km, across Miami-Dade and Broward, from the islands of Biscayne Bay to Fort Lauderdale.
• Designated driver in New York: US$125 per chauffeur-hour plus US$5 per km. The passenger car is operated by a TLC-licensed partner.
• Designated driver in London: £95 per chauffeur-hour plus £3.80 per km, across Greater London and the Home Counties.
• Safe driver in Dubai: AED 460 per chauffeur-hour plus AED 18.50 per km. Chauffeurs are employed through an RTA-licensed partner.

More cities are opening as approved chauffeurs join. The global hub shows where we operate today.

What a designated driver service costs

Pricing has two parts. Two chauffeurs are billed per chauffeur-hour, garage to garage, with a three-hour minimum and half-hour steps after that. A per-km rate then applies to your own trip only. The chauffeurs' journey back is already inside the hours, so you never pay for distance twice. Estimated tolls are included in the price you see.

Some realistic ranges, before tax:

• Toronto dinner, three hours garage to garage and 20 to 30 km of driving: roughly CA$1,220 to CA$1,290.
• Miami, three hours and 15 to 25 km: roughly US$825 to US$875.
• New York, three and a half hours and 20 to 35 km: roughly US$975 to US$1,050.
• London, three hours and 15 to 25 km: roughly £627 to £665.
• Dubai, three hours and 25 to 40 km: roughly AED 3,220 to AED 3,500.

The minimum for any booking, before distance, is CA$1,080 in Toronto, US$750 in Miami and New York, £570 in London and AED 2,760 in Dubai. Payment is taken in full when you reserve; there is no deposit. Cancel 72 hours or more before pickup and you are refunded in full. Inside 72 hours the refund is 50%, and a no-show, or a cancellation after the chauffeurs have been dispatched, is not refunded. Read the complete terms in our cancellation policy.

A cleaning fee applies only if a vehicle is soiled, charged after the trip with photographs: US$250 to US$350, CA$350 to CA$500, £190 to £265 or AED 920 to AED 1,285. Tips are optional and go entirely to the chauffeurs. To see a figure for your own route, use the instant price calculator.

Nights when a designated chauffeur makes sense

Most bookings start with a simple thought: I would like to enjoy tonight and still have my car at home tomorrow. Typical occasions include:

• Dinner with wine at a restaurant you drove to straight from the office.
• Charity galas, award evenings and black-tie dinners.
• Weddings, milestone birthdays and holiday parties, where you are a guest rather than a host keeping count.
• Client entertaining, when an executive arrived by car and should not drive home.
• Long-haul arrivals at an airport or private terminal, when you are too tired to take the wheel.
• Cruise ports, marinas and train stations, where the car has been waiting for you.
• Clinic appointments involving sedation, after which patients are told not to drive.

Hosting the evening yourself? You can book a RydeBack for a guest who arrived by car. The guest completes the ownership check before the chauffeurs take the keys, and leaves on the same terms as everyone else, with their own car home by morning.

If the job is simply moving a car from A to B without a night out attached, our guide to hire a driver to drive your car covers that use. If you need someone at the wheel for a whole day of meetings, look at our private chauffeur service. And if the question in your head is literally who can drive my car home tonight, that page answers it in a few lines. Organisations booking for others will find hotel, corporate and clinic accounts on who we serve.

Make the plan before the evening starts

The safest decision about driving is the one taken before the first glass is poured. Road-safety organisations make the same point. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration explains the risks on its drunk driving resource page. Mothers Against Drunk Driving campaigns on the issue, and Responsibility.org publishes guidance on planning a safe ride home. We link to them as background reading; they are independent and do not endorse RydeBack.

Online reservations are opening soon. Until then, book by phone on 1-877-860-3388, by email at support@rydeback.com, or through the chat button on any page. Once online booking opens it will need at least two hours' notice, so for weddings and big event nights we suggest reserving days ahead. Our contact page lists every way to reach the team.