Carpool – You Will Need a Carpool Agreement

Now depending on who you are carpooling with. I strongly recommend you have a formal agreement.

The agreement should contain:

• release of liability in case of accident
• contributing to a carpool account – no free rides
• location of pick-up and drop-off
• who’s driving on what days

Release of liability - if you are driving, you definitly want to clear yourself of any legal proceedings should an accident occur. What may be your friends now can quickly change if they are injured during an accident. You should be free and clear of any liability since you’re simply providing a service to save them money.

Carpool funds – If you will be the sole driver or drive the majority of the time.

You should get reimbursed for:

• Gas
• Insurance
• Tires
• Tune-ups
• Car washes
• Depreciation

The problem is, it’s hard to put a price on many of these things. Let alone try and split it up amongst others.

Of course you can do it out of the goodness of your heart, but when it comes time for you to buy a new car – will they help you pay for it? It can seem trivial to some and if they really feel strongly about it, let them be the driver. Your vehicle was probably picked because it gets the best gas mileage and you shouldn’t be penalized for being a smart buyer.

So where do you start in figuring all this out?

First you’ll need to list what will be replaced under normal conditions. things like oil changes, tune-ups, tires, batteries, windshield wipers, other fluids, brakes, clutch (if manual transmission)…etc

Personally I think you are doing everyone a favor by sacrificing your car for the group. So I would throw in the cost of car washes, wax jobs, cleanings and other mundane routine tasks.

If your car isn’t brand new and you have kept records of all the time you’ve had your car serviced, that’s a great place to start. You’ll have the proof of what the upkeep costs and no one can deny it.

So once you get the cost of repairs and upkeep, you’ll need to divide it fairly with the members of your car pool club. You can add up all the expenses for the previous year and divide it by 300. Why divide it by 300 and not 365? Because the wear and tear and residual value after stacking up all that mileage is unknown.

Remember, you are sacrificing your car and if one member has the exact same car, after 2 years – how much is your car worth? How much is the other car worth? A lot more because it has less mileage.