Money from car passengers?

Maureen43

So, following on from the post about car insurance for a new driver, I've decided to buy her a small (cheap to insure) car as it works out better value than insuring her on mine.

She'll be driving about 30 miles a day.

There is a possibility that she'll be giving a friend a lift a few days a week.

How much is a reasonable amount to ask a fellow passenger to pay? Toward petrol predominantly as my dd will be paying for that herself.

What sort of rate per mile would people recommend?

M.

Hintza

It depends on a host of factors primarily how much are the alternative options eg bus?

She could just charge half the petrol or add a little to cover other costs.

DUTR

Maureen43 wrote: »

So, following on from the post about car insurance for a new driver, I've decided to buy her a small (cheap to insure) car as it works out better value than insuring her on mine.

She'll be driving about 30 miles a day.

There is a possibility that she'll be giving a friend a lift a few days a week.

How much is a reasonable amount to ask a fellow passenger to pay? Toward petrol predominantly as my dd will be paying for that herself.

What sort of rate per mile would people recommend?

M.

Is she obliged to give the lift?
If the passenger has a travelcard then they would be incurring extra expense whilst losing some of their own independance.

arcon5

Is she en-route?
If so I'd say a couple gallons of petrol would be reasonable. So a tenner tops towards her £20-£25/ week commute. I wouldn't be looking for half.

If it's a detour she should consider whether she wants to commit to it every day. It's not always fun giving somebody a lift home at the end of a day when all you want or need to do is get home. Get stuck in traffic a couple of times and you can soon come to resent the agreement

Richard53

You can work out a fairly exact figure if you:

• Take all standing costs (VED, insurance, servicing, depreciation, breakdown cover, etc) for a year and, say, 10k miles
• Add fuel costs for the same mileage
• Divide total by expected mileage

This will give you a rough running cost per mile, and you will be surprised how much it is. The true cost of running a car is much higher than many people think. Divide this by the number of people in the car, and that will tell you how much it will be fair to charge per mile. As long as you don't charge more than that, you will not be classed as 'hire and reward' for insurance purposes (although it might be wise to check with your insurer).


Alternatively, HMRC regard 40p/mile as a reasonable rate for tax purposes, so that might be an easier calculation. If she gives one person a lift, that would be 20p/mile to charge; two people 13p/mile, and so on.

Mercdriver

Richard53 wrote: »

You can work out a fairly exact figure if you:

• Take all standing costs (VED, insurance, servicing, depreciation, breakdown cover, etc) for a year and, say, 10k miles
• Add fuel costs for the same mileage
• Divide total by expected mileage

This will give you a rough running cost per mile, and you will be surprised how much it is. The true cost of running a car is much higher than many people think. Divide this by the number of people in the car, and that will tell you how much it will be fair to charge per mile. As long as you don't charge more than that, you will not be classed as 'hire and reward' for insurance purposes (although it might be wise to check with your insurer).


Alternatively, HMRC regard 40p/mile as a reasonable rate for tax purposes, so that might be an easier calculation. If she gives one person a lift, that would be 20p/mile to charge; two people 13p/mile, and so on.

If she gets that technically into it, I don't think they will stay friends for long. Bearing in mind that the OP's daughter has to make the journey in any case I don't think it's reasonable to demand half the actual cost broken down like you suggest.

how much does the OP's daughter value the friendship?

loskie

how on earth did people manage to get on in life without the internet to decide everything for them?

Nebulous2

loskie wrote: »

how on earth did people manage to get on in life without the internet to decide everything for them?

Some people said - ' Give me a fiver a week towards my petrol?' and everyone was happy. Others said - ' My petrol costs £25 but I have the running costs of the car to pay so I'll charge you £20.' The mate paid it for week one, then announced they were taking the bus from now on and they ceased to be mates.

'Now everyone charges £11.79 because MSE said so. No-one is happy. Journeys are largely silent but the friendship just about struggles on.

takman

Richard53 wrote: »

You can work out a fairly exact figure if you:

• Take all standing costs (VED, insurance, servicing, depreciation, breakdown cover, etc) for a year and, say, 10k miles
• Add fuel costs for the same mileage
• Divide total by expected mileage

This will give you a rough running cost per mile, and you will be surprised how much it is. The true cost of running a car is much higher than many people think. Divide this by the number of people in the car, and that will tell you how much it will be fair to charge per mile. As long as you don't charge more than that, you will not be classed as 'hire and reward' for insurance purposes (although it might be wise to check with your insurer).


Alternatively, HMRC regard 40p/mile as a reasonable rate for tax purposes, so that might be an easier calculation. If she gives one person a lift, that would be 20p/mile to charge; two people 13p/mile, and so on.

That 40p a mile could be way over what it costs to run the car!. My car which is a 2003 Diesel Vectra costs less than 20p a mile including all costs (fuel, insurance, repairs etc) plus 100% depreciation on the cars purchase price!.


OP: personally if I was giving a friend a lift I would let them pay whatever they felt was reasonable. In the past that has sometimes been nothing, but in return good friends always do favours for me.
If I didn't really like them then I would charge them roughly the cost of the amount of fuel I was using (if I was doing the same trip anyway). In my car because fuel costs are around 10p a mile most people find this reasonable and wouldn't think they were paying for the full amount of fuel used during the trip!.

DigForVictory

Richard53 wrote: »

classed as 'hire and reward' for insurance purposes (although it might be wise to check with your insurer).

^^ This, please.
If your daughter is not covered by insurance for Any reason, the sums received will be not be enough to repair matters.

spadoosh

0 pence per mile. Shes a friend going to the same place. Extra costs incurred is negligible. Shes trying to profit from her friend. I wouldnt be running her around like and would expect it to be at my convenience, ie nt having to wait around or travel much out of the way to their house.

Im guessing itll save the friend some money so you would assume they would offer a contribution somewhere between what shes saving and 0.

If shes planning on charging i take it she will be available for the days she is on holiday and her [STRIKE]friend[/STRIKE] colleague is not?