Sharing cars saves people money, makes our streets nicer, and helps mitigate climate change. The Woodstock Car Sharing Club makes it easy for our Woodstock community to share cars. We have teamed up with HiyaCar, the UK’s longest trading peer to peer car sharing platform with over 100,000 members throughout the country to make the whole process hassle free.
There are loads of different ways to share cars - all are great. You can informally share a car with a friend or family or you can rent your car out with an app like Hiyacar. Car sharing is a great way to save money, reduce the number of cars on our streets and to help combate climate change as a community.
Owning a car is expensive! The average car costs £3407 per year and estimates suggest that the average person works an extra 2 hours each working day in order to afford their car.
Sharing a car is a great way of doing your bit to help the environment. Owning a car is the same emissions as 10 return flights to Rome per year and accounts for 8% of UK emissions.
Be part of a shared community and work together to make a positive change to our environment.
Improving local streets by having fewer cars and make the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians. The average car is parked 97% of the time, so why not lend out yours?
Live in Woodstock? Join the Woodstock Car Share Club to borrow or lend a vehicle.
Transport is the UK's largest source of emissions. Most of this is from privately owned cars. EVs are brilliant, but we can't just replace them 1:1. Most cars are unused 96.5% of the time (according to the RAC). So sharing them makes sense.
Many people need to own cars. Others value the convenience of accessing one when they need it but don't actually want the hassles and expense of owning one.
Our vision is of a future with fewer cars, where we have shared EVs available on our streets when we need them, and where the space outside our houses can be used for other things.
Borrow a neighbour's car for no monthly fee. Use it when you need a spare car, or when yours breaks down. Or completely avoid the hassle and cost of owning a car altogether.
We're working with a commercial partner called Hiyacar, who provide an app-based service which is essentially 'airbnb for cars'. The Woodstock Car Share community can sign-up to lend and borrow cars at a commercial rate, insurance is added to the cost of hourly car-rental automatically by the app .
Hiyacar has set up what's called a 'closed-loop' for Woodstock Car Share. That means that only people living in Woodstock can see the available cars. Sign up to the free Hiyacar app as a driver or list your car as an owner.
Share the costs of car ownership with your neighbours. Let your car be used by others when you're not using it yourself. Reduce emissions and improve your local streets. Meet your neighbours and contribute positively to the Woodstock community.
We're working with a commercial partner called Hiyacar, who provide an app-based service which is essentially 'airbnb for cars'. The Woodstock Car Share community can sign-up to lend and borrow cars at a commercial rate, insurance is added to the cost of hourly car-rental automatically by the app .
Scroll through our frequently asked questions.
You can set it up any way you like. We did the first group as a neighbourhood car-share, so anyone who lives within 6 streets (and passes Hiyacar's driver verification) can borrow any of the cars we have put up for loan. But it's also possible to share with a group of friends (you just need to give Hiyacar a list of names). You set up the group, so you decide.
That depends on your insurance profile and the car you're renting. On the Hiyacar app, as a driver, you can get a quote before you finalise your rental. The cost of rental will be insurance, plus booking fee, plus the fee you pay to the car owner. Cars are charged at an hourly rate.
To a degree that depends a bit on what you decide to do in your loop. We decided to say that people wouldn't leave rubbish in the cars (no banana skins or crisp packets) but personal stuff is fine (spare umbrellas, driving shoes, dog bed, kids car seats). We also decided that if it was borrowed for a trip of under 10 miles, there was no need to refill the tank. Think of it like borrowing a friend's car, not hiring at Avis or Hertz.
Don't be! In our groups, we know that many of our car owners also have kids / dogs. They will specify this in their car listing, and if they don't want kids or dogs they will say this and then you can borrow a different car.
There are some insurance limitations. You need to be aged between 23 and 75.
Hiyacar have a high standard for driver verification. This allows owners to lend their car safe in the knowledge that you are who you say you are. Hiyacar's insurer looks at 33 different data points before calculating your insurance premium for each journey. The reason the insurers ask for your job title is that apparently it can affect your insurance profile.
Hiyacar have a stringent verification and vetting process and bad or problem drivers aren't permitted to borrow. All drivers are on the electoral roll and will be age 23-75.
It's helpful if you can say a bit about your car and how you use it on the app. So you can say that you use it Mon-Fri but it's available most Sundays. You can say your car is often quite messy and you don’t care what goes in it, or you can say that you’d prefer not to have kids or dogs in the car. Then we trust that only people who fit that profile will borrow it. They’re your neighbours, afterall.
Not that clean! We say that rubbish (e.g. banana skins, crisp packets, water bottles) should be removed from the car before it’s loaned out but there’s no need to hoover it or to remove the stuff that you usually keep in your car. Imagine that you're lending it to a friend - that's how clean it should be. Drivers understand that the car is not being loaned out for profit and therefore do not expect it to be as clean as a hire car. If you're renting it commercially, it probably needs to be a bit cleaner.
That depends on how much you charge for your car! Hiyacar gives you a range of options. Some people in our group priced towards then bottom of the recommended range - which seems to more or less cover costs. Generally, people who are in a closed loop only don't rent their cars out very often (maybe a couple of times a month). Their main motivation has been to make their car available if needed to allow other people to give up their cars. If you want to rent commercially via Hiyacar you can just list your car on the app, and as you're making it available to a much wider pool of people, you'll likely get a lot more requests and more money. It does tend to take a few months to build up your car profile if it's rented commercially.
Hiyacar have a check-in system which we can use with their app, it’s really quick and easy (involves taking photos).
In our group, we've said that if someone rents it for less than 10 miles (i.e. trip to the tip, supermarket etc) they don't need to fill it up, but if it's for longer, they should do.
Easiest way to do it is to download the Hiyacar app and just sign up your car. It won't be released to be rented until you've either had an introductory call with Hiyacar Customer Service or just messaged them and said you don't want to if you're in a loop. Hiyacar will see the area you're adding your car from and will automatically put it in a loop.
In our group, some cars are fitted with Quick Start technology. This allows the borrower to open the car with the App. For cars that aren't fitted with Quick Start, we just arrange keys on the Hiyacar message system. Sometimes the driver picks them up at the start of the rental, or if the owner knows they're going to be out, they drop the keys through the driver's letterbox. At the end of the rental, the driver posts the keys back through the owner's door.
Woodstock Car Share is kindly supported by Share our Cars, Sustainable Woodstock, Blenheim and Wake up to Woodstock, If you would like to get in touch directly, please email us.