The Atlantic

What Is the Future of Getting Kids to Soccer Practice?

A slew of small, Uber-like companies have launched in recent years, offering parents a way to outsource their daily driving.
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If only children were allowed to drive, they could get from home to school to piano lessons and back home again without their parents’ help. Alas, they are not.

In recent years, though, a slew of relatively small companies have stepped in to correct for this unfortunate fact, offering a service that, from the perspective of an overstressed parent, has a similar effect: They sell dependably safe, usually prescheduled car rides for unaccompanied minors.

These Uber-like companies have mostly limited their operations to just one or two metropolitan areas each, and they’re dotted throughout the country—from to to . They have appropriately start-uppy names like Zūm and Sheprd, and tend to charge in the neighborhood of $15 for a 15-minute ride (but usually less if a child rides with other children). Compared with the biggest multiple years of caregiving experience. One (Bubbl, in Dallas) off-duty or retired police officers, and another (Zemcar, in New England) lets parents .

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