Liftshare Week: How liftsharing helps real people get around

We’re forever harping on about the social, environmental and financial benefits of liftsharing, but as it’s Liftshare Week, we thought we’d let our users do the talking. Here’s some of our members talking on how the site and their shares have helped them;

Accessibility

Sue needs a crutch to walk and is unable to drive, but thanks to Camshare (that’s Cambridgeshire County Council’s scheme) she has been able to commute from Ely to Cambridge for several years. She said “The bus service is costly, inconvenient and would have taken up to three hours a day, so I can honestly say that without carsharing, I would’ve needed to use a taxi every day. It’s been a vital lifeline and enabled me to continue working and living a relatively normal, cost-effective and independent life that I would otherwise not be able to do”.

Richard in Haslemere lost his driving licence after having an epileptic fit at work. Fortunately he found a Liftshare  member who could drive him the 20 miles each way.  “Had she not offered me a lift, I’d have had to get taxis and trains to work for a year, which would have been very expensive. I’m very grateful for the lifts and have made a good friend” he says.

Commutes

Richa works in Uxbridge, and has no direct train there from her hometown. “On a good day, the journey took about two hours door-to-door.”, she explains. Now that she carshares, her journey takes about half an hour each way – saving Richa three hours of travel every day!

Our member Stephen lives in County Tyrone, but works in Belfast. His daily commute is now shared with three other users on Liftshare, and he saves over £4000 every year – a nifty payrise for such a small lifestyle change.

Meeting new friends

“I’d moved to Beverley for a job, and we didn’t know many people in the local area”, Gemma e-mailed us after using the site. “My car-sharer Katie and her husband have become great friends and we see them socially most weeks now”. Another friendship secured!

James from York now goes to parties and pub quizzes with his liftsharers, saying “We’ve all become good friends through car-sharing and regularly socialise outside of travelling to work”.

Heather and Claire travelled to Edinburgh for work, and soon found common ground “We had both started car-sharing just to save money so I wasn’t expecting to become friends and to find the journeys so emotionally helpful. I had recently went through a pretty rough break up and I found our long car journeys really therapeutic as we would discuss our relationship pasts and work through what was going on in my life emotionally. Claire would also tell me stories about her new partner and how they met which really gave me hope for the future. It dawned on me that I spent more time with Claire than with the rest of my friends and family so it was no wonder that we got to know each other so well.  Despite the fact that I have known her for a much shorter time than most of my friends, I feel like we got to know practically everything about each other by spending so much time together each day and I hope we continue to stay in touch”.

Festival travel

Holly had a great experience travelling to EOTR; “Being a die-hard fan of End of The Road Festival for several years (I’ve been going since 2007) I was at a loss last year when loads of my usual buddies for this festival either weren’t going, or weren’t driving there in Sept 2013. At a loss for transport and with a lack of travel buddies, I scanned Liftshare for Londoners living near me who might be going to Dorset that weekend too. I found Gidon and his retro, spacious and maximum comfort Japanese campervan, and before long we’d filled it with 5 people all on their way to the festival, making our travel costs super cheap…just £18.00 each both ways from London to Dorset!”

Educational benefits… ish 😉

Norman tells us “My daughter asked for help with her Physics homework. “Dad, why does a neutron turn into a proton during beta radiation? Well, it’s pretty straightforward, but it’s getting late. We’ll go over it tomorrow night, I promise.” After she’d gone to bed, I scratted through some old books but there was precious little on why. Luckily, there are no fewer than five nuclear engineers in my car pool so I put it to the brains trust in the morning. That night, I sounded perilously like I knew what I was talking about. And, just for a second, was that a flicker of respect in the teen’s eyes? That had to be worth something, on top of the fuel savings”.

So if all that doesn’t tempt you, will the chance to win £250 work? This week only – read our blog for more info!