Would you share your car with a complete stranger?

I did this for a few months a couple of years back. I registered on a lift sharing website, a guy who did the same jouney as me got in touch and we alternated cars for a couple of days each week.

It did obviously save us both fuel, which was the goal of course, the guy was normal enough and I had no concerns like that. So yes, it can work.

I’m not sure that I’d do it again though, because it’s not exactly convenient. It’s awkward if one of you has to leave work early or stay late unexpectedly etc. Also the extra pressure of knowing that someone else is relying on you doesn’t help, and unless you’re incredibly lucky, you’re never going to find someone to do this with who lives and works exactly on your doorstep, so it will always incur a few extra miles and minutes to make it happen, depending on your arrangement of course.

These little things and others all add up, and to be honest just for the sake of saving a few quid, I’d rather drive by myself, it’s a lot less hassle.

Colleagues, friends or neighbours – maybe, if it suits [rich835 highlights the snags above]. Complete strangers? No way – a long journey could be a nightmare. If you did do it I think you’d need some rules – no smoking, no phone calls or other distractions, no route directions, no time constraints, no commentary or arguments, no fiddling with the heating or radio controls, and any payment in advance.

Not for me, but I give many lifts to people I know.

High fuel prices don’t stop parents going on the ‘school run’ when there is a bus they could send the children on. In Northern Ireland all children are entitled to a free bus pass, which is given to them at the start of the school year. But it seems most don’t use it as there is always gridlock outside the schools.

I don’t drive, but a friend of mine does and we occasionally go on weekends away together. A couple of times we’ve done callouts on the Twitter to see if anyone else is traveling to the same place and wants a lift. It seems a horrible waste to have three seats in the car empty. The last time we went to a conference we managed to get two extra people in the car – both lovely (because we met them on Twitter we could check them out to make sure they were real people, both had links to their workplaces, etc in their tweets) and it saved us all money. A nice idea.

The main thing that concerns me about this, though, is that it does tie you all together if it’s a return trip (which in this case it was). It meant that some of us had less flexibility about returning, and I think we’d have preferred to be able to choose the times rather than have to rush back to get one of the party back to work.

No chance.

Good point though Richard

If there was ever the unlikely chance that someone would be driving a similar route to me, I forsee quite a few problems.
a) a car is not comfortable b) a car is very fast and they drive it fast c) driver likes to drum on the steering wheel and generally rock out to really heavy music, really loudly d) driver likes to sing e) driver likes to eat/drink whilst driving e) your sharing partners have beat up old fiestas and you have a new BMW

So that is just the tip of the iceberg, other contributors have mentioned many other issues I forsee.

We don’t live in a utopian dreamworld where everyone gets on and lives and works in the same places.

The very point of a car is that it is private transport to suit your very needs, as soon as you “rent” it out then it becomes public transport. Every year there is a new “initiative” to encourage this, yet it never works, when will they get it through their heads? If I want to travel with other people, i will take the bus or the train.

2008 transport law states if you drive the public and there is a commercial advantage to you doing so then you need to be licenced. Sharing the journey from and to work with colleagues or going to football with the guys down the pub does not seem to me to be in the same criteria as having a commercial organisation take bookings from the public for a driver. I have looked on the TFL web site and they give clear advice about what is hire and reward. Any one considering transporting the public should take proper legal advice. If you are convicted of acting as an unlicensed private hire driver regardless of recieving a cash payment you will get a minimum of six points on your driving licence and if a local council enforcement officer or similar take further action you could go to jail.