Do you try to be green and save some green by carpooling to work each day? Or are you driving a gaggle of kids to soccer practice a couple of times a week?
If you're doing either, you may want to consider creating a carpool contract. I just learned about this concept from the September issue of Parents magazine, and frankly, it strikes me as a great idea. Their article focuses on carpooling with kids, but as veteran carpoolers can attest, a work carpool can create plenty of sticky issues.
For example, what do you do if one driver is always late, making the rest of you sit around worrying about clocking in on time? What happens if there's an accident where you're all incapacitated? As for the kids, what are the consequences if a parent is consistently not home when a child is dropped off? Is the carpool driver responsible? What about running errands on the way or smoking in your vehicle with the kids present?
Enter nolo.com. Turns out you can download a "Children's Car-Pool Agreement" for just five bucks! The agreement is also available in a book of 100 forms, so you could feasibly conquer a lot of tasks with it.
As for those who need ideas right away for starting a carpool with an agreement in hand, here are some issues to put out to the other parents:
- No child under 12 in the front seat.
- All children must be properly buckled into age-appropriate restraints, based on state law. No sharing seat belts!
- Contact/health information will be in the glove box of each driver's car. Each parent is responsible for providing current information for their children to each driver involved.
- Drivers must be properly insured and licensed to drive.
- What happens if children or drivers are late? How long will the driver(s) wait for late arrivals?
- Are drivers allowed to run errands along the route?
- Are parents comfortable with picking up children's friends on special days? (For instance, if a carpooling child is bringing home a friend for a sleepover.)
- What are the drivers' rules for smoking, talking on a cell phone, or other issues and habits that may be distractions?
- Are children allowed to have food and drinks in the vehicles? If not, what are the consequences for sneaking snacks?
As much as we'd like to say otherwise, plenty of these rules apply to work carpools too. After all, how often have you had to tell a friend it's not okay to indulge his Mac Attack in your backseat because he always spills that special sauce?
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