Sharing a vehicle with a collective

November 26, 2018 7:49 PM

I'm part of an art/design/architecture collective with around 20 people. Recently, a friend donated a pickup truck to us. This is amazing! How do we best share the truck amongst everyone?

We are based in NYC. The truck is an older pickup truck. We're pretty responsible people, and technologically-savvy, but want to know if anyone has experience sharing a vehicle with a group.

Some things we've thought about:

1) Insurance. Currently our insurance would be $3,600/yr to cover 20 people, with comprehension and collision. Is this insane or okay?
2) Getting a GPS-enabled OBD port reader, so we can track where it is parked.. and can automatically calculate fuel costs based on miles? Has anyone tried this before?
2) Having a sign-up sheet online or via Slack.
3) Any apps that help us split costs?

If you have any technical, social, emotional experience on sharing a truck with a group, please let me know!

posted by suedehead to Travel & Transportation (8 answers total)

Gas. Make a guideline for when the truck should be filled. At work, it's generally when the tank is half-empty, which seems to allow enough mileage that if someone jumps into the car at the last minute for an emergency trip, they are unlikely to have to stop at a gas station, but also enough wiggle room that people don't feel like they're having to run to the gas station all the time. Splitting the gas costs is great, but also make sure you're being fair about who's having to put gas in the car.
posted by lazuli at 8:37 PM on November 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

On gas: do you want people to pay based on usage, so Jimmy who takes it out most wears most of the cost? Or have some sort of kitty so you pay equal shares into a pool out of which you get reimbursed, or a hybrid system where you pay for long trips but not for little runarounds?

What about services and maintenance? Repairs?
posted by freethefeet at 11:51 PM on November 26, 2018

You have a few problems to solve, including:

— Fair distribution and access: eg, What prevents Bob from monopolizing it for every weekend for the next six months?

— Repairs: eg, You are driving it with a heavy load and the transmission falls out. Who pays the big repair bill: Shared equally among members? Apportioned by miles driven? Charged to th person who broke it?

— Gas: eg how to apportion gas costs since the person filling the truck isn’t necessarily the person driving many miles. If you are staying mostly local, could a shared gas card work? (And I’d so, what are your procedures when someone is caught filling their friends’ cars?)
posted by Dip Flash at 3:31 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh gosh. This is why i love spreadsheets. You can easily merge together scheduling with miles used. Fuel is charged per person's use. Get a gas card for a convenient station and leave in the truck. People venmo or whatever method what they owe monthly for gas.

Everyone shares repairs. Id suggest starting with a kitty to cover fuel bills, routine maintenance, and annual insurance. And maybe top up every 6 months?

If you start with $180 per person for insurance and a pool of say $5k annually for repairs and routine maintenance this works out to $430 per person annually. Cheap for a car!! So say everyone chucks in $225 for first 6 months. That pays first year's insurance and a little extra for early routine stuff (does it currently need new tirew etc?).

Other thought: might have to build parking costs for overnight regular parking into that (as you mentioned NYC)
posted by chasles at 4:47 AM on November 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

Side note: I would totally build that spreadsheet for you!!! I love this coop idea.
posted by chasles at 4:48 AM on November 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

Who actually owns the vehicle? Make VERY sure that your insurance is up to this ... your lowest liability limits can be wiped out in even a relatively minor accident when there are medical bills, and ALL the owners on the title are ALL liable ... no matter who is actually driving at the time of the accident.
posted by cyndigo at 8:43 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: awww hell who am I kidding. i totally did build that spreadsheet for you (at least a pretty good workable start). plenty more to add (like a calculation for how much $ per gallon etc). be sure to click the + at the top to unroll each month. all the highlighting and stuff is automated to help people avoid double booking.
posted by chasles at 5:40 PM on November 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for all of this feedback! And thanks to chasles - wow! This will be really helpful. I think I'll create a google forms that autopopulates that spreadsheet so that it could be easily entered from a phone, and then tape a QR code to the google forms onto the dashboard. Or perhaps I'll use Airtable forms, which allows for photo upload, so that people can just take a photo of the mileage counter.

I'm not worried about people unfairly monopolizing the truck, but if we do, perhaps we'll have to have a quota.. but I've learned not to design for social worst-cases. Our collective is pretty good about things like that.

A gas card is a really good point. I hadn't thought to separate out car usage and filling the tank. Since mostly this will be used for shorter errands, someone could fill the gas every once in a while.
posted by suedehead at 10:02 PM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]