ShareShotgun is a service aimed at providing commuters with an online carpool community that is safe, easy to use, and extremely convenient, while demonstrating an ongoing commitment to reducing carbon emissions. It lets friends, neighbors, co-workers and others with similar routes arrange rides together. It helps match people going on similar routes somewhere with a car (i.e. the "driver") with people who are looking to go somewhere (i.e. the "passenger"). Each passenger agrees to pay the driver for his/her fair share of the costs of the trip.
ShareShotgun members post their desired trips, specifying when and where they will be traveling, for others who are searching to find compatible routes. When a match is made, the details of the trip are agreed to online (specific meeting place and time, destination, who is the driver, etc.).
The use of ShareShotgun to arrange ride sharing is free. Our system also allows members to share the costs of the trip by utilizing the PayPal service to provide a safe and effective way to make payments to drivers. Once a driver and passenger agree to travel together, ShareShotgun assesses a service fee equal to the greater of $0.50 or 10% of your share.
Once a bid is accepted, the passenger will only be
charged for his/her share of the trip costs by moving funds from his/her credit
card or PayPal account to ShareShotgun’s PayPal account. Payment is only
processed to the driver 24 hours after the departure time. This gives both the
driver and passenger time to voice any complaints towards receiving a refund.
If there are no complaints, the payment is transferred from ShareShotgun’s PayPal
account into the driver's PayPal account. For more refund information, please see below.
We utilize gas prices publicized by AAA (by state) on a daily basis. Each day, we update our gas price database in order to provide our users the most up-to-date pricing data relevant to them.
The following factors are also taken into account by the system when estimating the cost of a trip:
As the price of gas rises and falls, this will be reflected in real-time for our users.
This estimated total trip cost will be divided between the passenger(s) and the driver. However, the passenger can also choose to offer more than the calculated price in order to make his/her bid more appealing to the driver and differentiate himself/herself from other would-be passengers. Note that the original total trip cost estimated by ShareShotgun is deemed the minimum fair value, so a bid cannot be lower than this amount.
The driver may add additional costs such as tolls or parking at his/her discretion, but passengers are not obligated to consent to these charges. A passenger may reject or even increase these amounts if he/she so chooses.
*Note: A driver may identify his/her trip as "free", in which case he/she will not be accepting payments. The only payment that would be collected is the service fee to ShareShotgun for each trip (equal to the greater of $0.50 or 10% of your share).
A Trip is a route which either you plan to drive yourself or ride as passenger with a volunteering driver. Posted trips all have names and addresses that are public (everyone can see them) and a private name if you choose to assign one (e.g. "Commute Home"). You can specify the trip frequency and whether it is a roundtrip. Trips can be updated or deleted at any time from the "Posted Trips" tab of your profile.
As a volunteer driver you may receive multiple bids from passengers requesting to join various trips you have posted. It is up to the driver to accept or reject these bids.
This can be accomplished in two different ways:
On your Home page, go to your Posted Trips tab. Here
you will be able to click the overview link to edit, or delete trips. You can
edit the names and information of any trips you've saved at any time.
You can cancel your trip at any time up until 24 hours prior to your scheduled departure to get a full refund less the service fee. The service fee is never refundable as we consider the fee earned the moment a passenger and driver agree to travel together.
If a passenger cancels within 24 hours of the departure time the highest refund a passenger can receive is 50% of the total amount. We all have last minute challenges and sometimes will not be able to meet our agreed obligations. For each cancellation within 24 hours of departure, the cancelling member's Trust Rating will be reduced by one (1) point.
If the driver notes that the passenger never showed up, the driver will receive only 50% of the total payment because the ride never took place. However, each passenger will be given the opportunity to voice his/her rebuttal.
Each party is given the opportunity to voice its complaints and feedback within 24 hours after the agreed upon departure time. An email will be sent out to each party as a friendly reminder for people to complete their feedback/review of the ride. This feedback will help determine the amount of the refund as well as the trust rating for each party.
You should check with your insurance agent since the details of each policy are different. Many policies provide that, as long as the driver is asking each passenger to pay no more than their share of the costs of the trip - sometimes known as a "share-the-expense car pool arrangement" - passengers are covered by the driver's policy, subject to the various limitations of that policy. ShareShotgun does not check driver's insurance and does not represent that drivers are insured.
The driver is the decision-maker and sets the tone for whether this
will be a silent or conversational trip. He/she also has control over the radio. All members are encouraged to exercise good judgment as it relates to safety.