Living Car Free - Anyone try car sharing with neighbors?

While my suburban Texas neighborhood isn't exactly ripe for car sharing, presumably I could get a few of my one-car neighbors (there must be a few!) interested in car sharing. Have you done this in an informal or formal manner (insurance and all)? How does it work?

Brian

I wish I could find the article again, but there is a neighborhood that did their own truck share. A group of neighbors split the cost of the truck 4 ways (or however many households where involved) with 1 family taking care of collecting the money and paying the insurance and maintenance. They set up a yearly fee and each of the co-owners got free use throughout the year. They used an online calender to establish rent times and opened up the truck share to others in the neighborhood on a per use fee base to help keep their cost down.

With the right neighbors, it would be pretty cool.

With the right neighbors, it would be pretty cool.

With the right neighbors, lots of things/activities, including many that are considered illegal/immoral by most neighbors, could be pretty cool. Finding and keeping the right neighbors is the tricky part though.

:innocent: Good point.

In this day and age of litigation I would be very wary of a loosely based truck sharing plan. However! what I have done in the past is made a deal with a neighbor that had a pickup. I would buy him a beer every now and again, he would almost always check with me before he made a run to the local home improvement center to see if I needed anything. I was more than happy to buy him a 12 pack and toss a few $$ his way for gas in exchange for hauling things back for me. Now most home improvement centers have trucks available for a pretty reasonable rate. The one closest to me is 12 miles away and they have a truck available for $20 an hour(I think that is the time) plus fuel. Not a bad deal. If you order a large amount or pool your orders you can have it delivered.

Aaron:)

With the right neighbors, lots of things/activities, including many that are considered illegal/immoral by most neighbors, could be pretty cool. Finding and keeping the right neighbors is the tricky part though.

I have no idea what you mean by "illegal/immoral." But I agree that finding the right neighbors is tricky--and also one of life's greatest blessings when it does happen. I grew up with wonderful neighbors. 35 years later, we're still close in spirit, even though we're scattered all over the country.

I wish I had neighbors now who would cooperatively buy a bike trailer. I'd like to use one a few times a year, but not often enough to make it worthwhile to buy my own.