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Have started giving a work colleague a lift to work a few mornings a week and a lift home once a week.
His wife will be using the car from now on as they have gone down to one car.
[u]Factors[/u]
It's not directly on route to work so 5 mins each way
I like my own company in the car and don't want to talk to anyone and see it as my own space away from wife children etc.
It's saving him £10 per week which he'd be spending on the bus.
Feel a bit tight asking him for £
He's not offered anything
What would you do ? I was thinking £7 per week ?!?!?
Comments gladly taken
Fiver and he buys you a coffee en route now and again.
Shanks pony
£10 a week. He's not out of pocket, and the bonus for him is he hasn't got to sit on the bus
I'd want at least a fiver a week. You're going out of your way to pick him up & drop him off.
He's not having to put any wear and tear on his car while you are on yours.
I'm amazed he hasn't offered anything, to be honest.
I've recently started lift sharing with a bloke at work & because we didn't want to deal with any financial to-ing and fro-ing we split the driving equally.
If he'd offered money then
"Fiver and he buys you a coffee en route now and again."
But as he's not then £10 or just don't do it. I'd go with don't do it
Is there an insurance consideration here? If you're "charging" for taking a colleague to work, are you a taxi and therefore your insurance company need to know?
He's not offered anything
He'd obviously prefer to be getting the bus then.
Unless he's after something else...
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It sounds like although you are kindly enough to give the guy a lift, you feel a little hassled by it and that's fair given the extra time and loss of free space. So a small recompense is fair. Given that the extra journey time is almost an hour a week, a tenner is fair I think.
[quote=woody2000 ]Is there an insurance consideration here? If you're "charging" for taking a colleague to work, are you a taxi and therefore your insurance company need to know?
Not if you're covering costs rather than making a profit.
How long have you been doing it? it this is the first week, give the guy a chance to offer something at the end of the month.
How much is it actually costing you?
Is there an insurance consideration here? If you're "charging" for taking a colleague to work, are you a taxi and therefore your insurance company need to know?
No there isn't.
[url= https://www.abi.org.uk/products-and-issues/products/motor-insurance/car-sharing-and-insurance/ ]https://www.abi.org.uk/car-sharing-and-insurance/[/url]
The time to have that discussion was before you agreed to be his taxi service until the heat death of the universe, I'd have thought.
I think for me it'd depend who it was, I wouldn't charge a mate but would want to split costs with someone who was merely a work colleague.
This! If he's expecting you to do this FOREVER, and he isn't a good mate as well as a colleague, and he really isn't offering you anything or buying you a coffee/bacon roll once in a while - he's a pisstaker and/or you're a mug! 🙂The time to have that discussion was before you agreed to be his taxi service until the heat death of the universe, I'd have thought.
I don't take money off folk for driving 2 hours to Tweed valley, so 5 minutes out my way not an issue, unless he's a dick.
Give him a week or two to offer cash, if none forthcoming, just end arrangement with whatever excuse you see fit.
You have offered to give him a lift, he did not ask.unfitgeezer - Member
Have started giving a work colleague a lift to work a few mornings a week and a lift home once a week.
Had he asked then that's a different story.
Yes, you are.Feel a bit tight asking him for £
Yes, he is tight too.He's not offered anything
To keep things simple either you speak to him or stop offering him a lift or you will jeopardise your work relationship.
I'm struggling to work out why you offered in the first place!
Personally i'd just be looking for ways out, could you ride your bike in on a couple of the days? 😀
Make a point of driving to the petrol station with him in the car and see if he offers to pay.
It's easy to be thoughtless about the cost of transport if someone else is giving you a lift......less easy when you're sat watching them filling the tank and emptying their wallet.
id not do it.
He's 100% gaining and is now relying on you for a lift. I will gladly offer lifts to people for one off type things. i.e going to an event or trail centre for example. Ive only just started last year taking donations for this (based on filling up and splitting the cost of the fuel between how ever many are in the car). The thing that personally i dislike are the fact that some people will never return the favor. or even offer to. this means they dont get offered a lift again. What about the time your waiting for him? or the extra travel? or the time hes late? Na no thanks.
Two guys share here, they're uni mates and one doesn't drive - driver gets him to walk to his house, holds him hostage if he has to go shopping on the way home and STILL charges him £30 a month.
The moment he keeps you waiting outside his house end the deal. I was giving this chap a lift once every day, 5 minutes out of my way like yours, used to keep me waiting outside his house. Eventually I was straight with him and said 'I don't want to give you a lift anymore.' - fortunately he didn't work in the same department and he left 6 months later. I feel in life you have to be straight and direct with other people sometimes to get things that you want.
seems a bit tight to be wanting money. for 5 minutes out your road. doubt that's you're issue here anyhow. Just grow a set and say you don't want to pick him up any more, which is what you really want to do.
Either that or come up with a feeble excuse that they'll see through.
I'm going to go out on a limb here a bit, christ, what am I saying, Chewy is actually pretty bang on!!! 😯
I don't take money off folk for driving 2 hours to Tweed valley, so 5 minutes out my way not an issue, unless he's a dick.
Agreed, but I reckon the passenger has already marked himself out as a dick because he's not offered to contribute. I'd probably not take it if offered but the lack of an offer would bug me. So what do you do once you realise that the passenger is a dick?
There only seems to be two options either suck it up and keep giving him a lift which will gradually eat away at you until you are an empty husk of the man you once were. Or come across as an even bigger dick by asking him for money.
The only winning solution seems to be sell your car and cycle to work. Or change jobs. Or emigrate.
Chewy is actually pretty bang on
Broken clocks and all that. Bound to happen eventually.
😆Broken clocks and all that. Bound to happen eventually.
Where did the OP say he offered him a lift?
Personally I would expect him to pay something. Can't believe the brass necked get hasn't offered!
gobuchul - Member
Where did the OP say he offered him a lift?
If OP did not offer but the other guy requested then charge accordingly what is there to shy about? 😀
I think for me it'd depend who it was, I wouldn't charge a mate
And a mate wouldn't be a mate if they didn't offer.
You know what's gonna happen don't you? On the diversion to his house, you'll have a crash or knock a cyclist over. Then you'll resent him forever!
(Something similar happened to me when I gave someone a lift home many moons ago)
The keys to making a a good deal is circumstance, timing and need.
You'll always struggle to make an arrangement after the fact.
Now, if tightarse had come to you to ask for a lift, “tomorrow” which had evolved over time into a full time arrangement, then you could quite easily ask for some petrol money, but you offered so you screwed up the circumstance and it's past the first few awkward days, so you screwed up the timing - you're now 'friends' the only thing you have left is need.
Tightarse needs to get to work and home again, he has some options, walk / ride / bus / lift. I assume because of the distance walk is out or we wouldn't be here now, I guess they're not a cyclist either, or it's not practical - leaves the last two - one is free, a lift to work with your 'friend' chat shit about the TV last night, moan about the Mrs etc, the other is one of life's little miseries, no one likes the Bus apart from Nanas because they get to go in the middle of the day when there's only other Nanas on board and they don't have to pay, for the rest of us it's a bit shit.
Personally I'd say "Morning, sorry this is a bit awkward, but you know I'm happy to give you a lift, but do you mind if a formalise it a bit? I was thinking £7 a week". There's not a chance he'll say no - it's £3 cheaper than th bus and better in every way, he COULD run a second car, but as we all know, that ain't cheap.
It's 30 seconds of you pretending to have thick skin, either get your peace back, or more likely you get £350 a year, which if you put it in your piggy back would pay for - a flight to Geneva with your bike and a transfer to one of the resorts, a HT frame, s/h set of forks, wheelset who knows.
Life's too short. Stop giving him a lift and enjoy your own time again.
Hang on, you said...
I like my own company in the car and don't want to talk to anyone and see it as my own space away from wife children etc.
So can you just explain to us how the lift-giving began, madam?
You will soon be at fault for sleeping in or wanting a day off midweek at late notice, will get turned right round and you will be down as unreliable.
Just whip out the "old chap" mid commute, and rub one out furiously while shouting out "KYLIE!!"
No more annoying freeloading passengers
I think it'll probably resolve itself on the day that he says "You wont' believe how much money we've saved since I sold the car"
Having a van I'm [s]often[/s] always the one who drives when going on riding trips. Because of that there isn't really much of a reciprocal arrangement of taking turns to drive (I don't have a problem with that). I have found that women are much quicker to get the money out for the bridge toll or offer up petrol money than blokes. Maybe they are worried about being asked to pay in kind, which makes me more worried about the blokes 😯
Often used to give my colleagues a lift back from my job at a courier company. Usually finished at about 6pm.
Because it was an awful job with awful pay, I didn't think twice about it.
These days, despite the bonding which went on in my Hyudai Pony and the resulting good feeling, I'd likely demand some recompense.
You're just giving a lift share. My wife does this - someone is using your car and fuel to get them to work every day. Of course they owe you money for that.
If you ask for money it will become harder to end the arrangement. I'd not bother for £5 per week if it meant losing control.
Done it a few times before, but wouldn't again. It always ends up badly. Waiting outside their house when they're running late and you got up on time. Can you just call in the shop? Ect.
I think if someone picked me up from my door, dropped me to work and returned me home, it would save me owning a van and around £4000 per year.
Sounds like you are looking for an excuse not to give him a lift, which is fine.
Make a detour to fill up with fuel and ask him if he would mind paying for the fuel?
If he complains, leave him at the petrol station, end of your problem, if he pays, then make sure you fill up with them in the car every time you need fuel
Otherwise, just be honest and tell him you like to drive and chill out after work by yourself?
If you feel awkward talking directly to him about it, you could always use hand puppets.
Surely ten quid a week doesn't get you that far on a bus, cyclescheme?
Joat, thats what i was thinking.
This may mark me out as a dick,
But, would i **** go out of my way in the car to save someone else the cost of running their own car.
My experience of people who do this is they are users, if you stop them using you, they will just move on to using someone else.
Tell him you're going down to one car and you will be cycling to work.
Offer to swing by his and ride in with him, see how keen he is then.
Obviously, if its a mate, or its a one off, then that's different eh.
If he lived on your route to work I would see charging as being a bit tight. Going out of your way definitely means he should at least be offering to pay though. I'd bring up payment the next time you give him a lift. What's the worst that can happen?
If you can bare the company and the diversion, ask for £5-10 per week.
Or say the lift is from and to your driveway.
Or say you are going to cycle commute for the summer.
Think of the opportunity to nuture a seething ball of resentment and all the water cooler bitching, not to mention the passive aggressive lack of acknowledgement as he gets out of the and the **** you wheelspin from the drop off. Not to be wasted.
You can't put a price on some alone time listening to some of your favorite tunes.
And..givers have to set boundaries because takers won't.
I used to take my cousins bf to work. Picked him up from the side of the road that I pass and dropped him off where I work (2 mins from his work place) so wasn't going out of my way. He used to give me £5 per week which I think was fair. After a couple of months he would only pay every other Friday if I was lucky, started being late on a morning too but the final straw was asking if I could take him to the paper shop on a morning sometimes making me late. Tried speaking to him about it but got a bit of attitude. The following Monday I drove straight past him as he stood there on the roadside in the pissing down rain. That was the last time he ever got a lift form me bloody free loader
If it was me I would first ask him to meet you somewhere on your usual route. Tell him if he isn't there on time you will not be stopping.
If you like him and are not going outside your usual route I wouldn't ask for money. Be the bigger man.
However if it goes on for a couple of months and still nothing offered I would just make an excuse and not take him any more. You will feel no guilt in doing so and know you are the good not mean one.
He's had to get rid of a car, and is relying on favours to get to work.
Maybe cash is a bit tight at the moment?
However, I think that he's probably the best person to ask and a fiver to ten pounds a week depending on how far it is to work would be what I would expect to have to contribute.
I used to go an hour out of my way giving someone a lift home at a weekend. I just asked for my fuel to be covered.
One weekend he said I was ripping him off (I if anything I just about broke even petrol wise and I had an extra hour on my journey). I said fine then I won't take you. It took him 3x the time and about 4x the cost to get home via the train 😆
He came crawling back, I agreed to give him a lift again, but I didn't go out of my way I dropped him en-route, where someone else had to collect him.
Some people can be ungrateful dicks.
Colleague is indeed an ungrateful dick
problem is; once you have to ask for cash, there become a commitment (of a type) from your side to provide a service..
£10 a week. He's not out of pocket, and the bonus for him is he hasn't got to sit on the bus
+1
Colleague is indeed an ungrateful dick
To the OP and Marge - just stop doing it then.
If I was the recipient I would be very grateful, and you wouldn't need or wan't to ask for cash. If either have not behaved like that, then just withdraw the service.
Video the journeys and make money on a YouTube channel and possible TV show of car sharing. Except maybe a bit dull with the same guy every day.
A decent person would say at the end of the lift/week " cheers for that what do I owe you?" you would reply either " nothing mate it is no problem I drive in anyways" or " how does a fiver or tenner sound towards the fuel".
Sadly in life there are givers and takers and takers are defo outnumbering givers.
A prime example is when you start a big round in the pub it gets back round to you, you buy again the next thing half the round has left and you only get a couple back. Amazingly its the same ones that get just the one round every time, we all know one!!!
What's the etiquet with hitchers?
Whilst I usualy give them a lift when driving, I seem in a minority that offers at least a token ammount for stopping.
What's the etiquet with hitchers?
I haven't seen a hitcher in years. Are they still a thing?
Wait until 2 days after payday. If he hasn't offered by then he's not going to. Like above, if it was me you were giving a lift to you wouldnt have to ask.
I drive on average 4 hours a day to and from work alone. Audio books and music chill me out from the traffic. If your like me and like your "me" time alone in the vehicle then stop the car sharing. £10 is peanuts, not worth the intrusion.
Has the OP been stabbed by his hitchhiker?
It's a few mornings a week and once in the evening so not too demanding but makes a cost hard to define unless it's always the same number of trips - or just say £1 per trip?
I would pick someone up for work, at first they wanted a lift home to the door, which was 16 mile round trip for me, work was only 15 miles away. They had they're own car but weren't confident to drive,so I would pick them up from an agreed meeting place.
They almost had a hairy fit when I finally asked them to chip in for petrol (they bought someone else beer for giving them the odd lift now and again and I got nowt for a regular lift)
Wouldn't have been so bad, but they pleaded poverty constantly and it turns out (they're boasting confirmed it) that they were sitting on 40k in cash and just spent 10 on a new car..... Needless to say they don't take a lift now
Start cycling in?
Personally I wouldn't go much out of my way on a regular basis, even for petrol money, but I might suggest they meet me on my route, and they need to be there by a certain time to get a lift, and get dropped off at the same point.
This is peak singletrack. He should of offered, and you shouldn't accept. Then he should buy you a coffee, buy you a bottle of wine as a token of gratitude.
[i]This is peak singletrack: He should [/i][s]of[/s] have [i] offered[/i]
fd3chris - MemberI drive on average 4 hours a day to and from work alone.
Well thanks for clogging up our roads and polluting our air.
Perhaps you could change your lifestyle so you could afford to live closer to work, or work closer to home.
Now [i]that's[/i] peak singletrack. 😉
Odd that the OP's not been back, considering his usual posting rate.
Best solution is surely starting to cycle to work, though obviously he should do the right thing and offer the colleague a backie.
I'm still alive !
To confirm its been a few months, not once offered.
For the record I don't need the money its the principle involved, I asked him today about contributing, he actually thought I was joking and that I benefited him coming in early some days, told him that was ridiculous, he now knows how I feel, will see what happens over next few days.
Months? Tell him to do one.
And this whole dilemma is why I have never car shared on a regular basis.
Don't mind giving a lift on occasion, I often offer on a 1 off basis, but hate the pressure from a regular basis
Suits some folks but I just don't like the unwritten / unspoken assumptions on both sides.
How far is the journey?
Months!!! You've been waaay too nice.
I used to get a lift of someone on a semi regular basis, it was a teeny detour for her & she didn't ask me to cough up. Every so often I gave her a bottle of (very good) plonk in return.
Journey is 7 miles through London about 35mins
Journey is 7 miles through London about 35mins
Have you heard about these newfangled velocipedes?
7 miles. Through London. In a car?
Seriously?
almost tempted to send OP donations/coffee momey just for the reduction in fumes and traffic.
Personally I'd be wanting substantially more than a fiver or tenner per week. Even if he covers half your fuel bill, he is still not having to splash out on the other running costs of a car. Add in the fact that you lose your peace and quiet, and that he is taking the pee, I would nip it in the bud.
Plus what Flashy says!