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.

Factors

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…

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.

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.

https://www.abi.org.uk/car-sharing-and-insurance/

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.

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.

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! 🙂

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.

unfitgeezer – Member
Have started giving a work colleague a lift to work a few mornings a week and a lift home once a week.

You have offered to give him a lift, he did not ask.
Had he asked then that’s a different story.

Feel a bit tight asking him for £

Yes, you are.

He’s not offered anything

Yes, he is tight too.

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 often 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.