FAQ

This is my first time on the website. How does carpooling.co.uk work?: If you are visiting for the first time, you will find our "Getting Started" section gives you a good introduction to how the site works. You will also find lots of useful information in our FAQ section, as well as our Guestbooks for registered users.

In our Guestbooks you can ask other users questions or search for older entries by type. Should you have any further questions, you can always use our Customer Service page.

What is carpooling.co.uk?: carpooling.co.uk is an independent and commission free platform for sharing lifts. We bring people together and help them to organise journeys together.

We have already helped arrange millions of journeys, making the streets emptier and the cars fuller. For a quick list of reasons why you should lift share, and why you should use carpooling.co.uk, please see our Reasons page.

Our Premium Members can travel even more safely, easily and comfortably. Find out more about our "Premium Membership Advantages".

How can I contact carpooling.co.uk?: Should you need to contact us, please send us an email through the Customer Service page. Due to the high number of inquiries, we are currently unable to contacted by phone.
We seek to answer all questions within 24 hours during normal working hours, although you will often receive an answer within a few hours of your enquiry.

How much does it cost to use carpooling.co.uk?: The basic website features for finding and offering lifts on carpooling.co.uk are completely free.

As a passenger you simply pay a contribution fee towards the petrol costs of the driver. The amount you need to contribute is agreed between you and the driver. In the guidelines it states contributions should generally be between 7 and 9 pounds per 100 miles.

Further services are only available to our Premium Members. You will find information on these features in "Premium Membership Features".

How do I find a lift?: You will find a detailed explanation in our "Getting Started" section.

How do I offer a lift?: You will find a detailed explanation in our "Getting Started" section.

How is the petrol contribution for the driver decided, and how much is it?: Put simply the traveling costs are something to be negotiated. Before starting the journey, the driver and passenger/s should agree any cost contribution or traveling costs. There are 2 basic methods that can be used to calculate the costs:
Variable Costs: The travel costs are dependent on the number or passengers. carpooling.co.uk - recommends that a fair travel cost can be calculated by: fuel costs + 10 percent / number of people in the car. If you would like you can use our Cost Calculator to help.
Fixed Costs: A fixed cost is based on the expected number of passengers. These costs are generally a bit higher, as the driver alone takes the risk that some passengers won't show up. In general contributions are between 7 and 9 pounds per 100 miles when only one passenger is expected

What do I need to be aware of if I travel as the driver or passenger?: Anyone who follows our rules for passengers and drivers should enjoy their journey and have no problems. We have put the most important things that you should be aware of in the navigation bar under Guidelines.

Unfortunately my town/city is not in the drop down list. What can I do?: Our premium members have the ability to specify a meeting point within 6 miles.

For our basic members:
If you can't find your desired city or town in the list, please choose the nearest city or town, and then in the comments box simply state the actual start or end point of the journey. Unfortunately for obvious reasons we can only include so many towns and cities in the list. The list is constantly changed to suit what is happening on the site. Cities and towns that are not used will be removed, and new, regularly requested towns/cities will be added. If you think that there is a town or city that should really be included but isn't (population of at least 30,000, or a university, or similar), in the Guestbook you can suggest "Missing Towns/Cities".
We limit the list to cities and towns of a certain size for usability reasons. Unfortunately the chance of someone wanting to travel from a town with 10,000 inhabitants to a town with 20,000 inhabitants is too low. However we constantly watch how the market acts and make any adjustments that are necessary.

I have offered a lift, but I can't find my offer when I click on the "Search for Lifts" option in the menu! Why?: New offers/requests and changes to offers/requests, are not instantly made live in the search. It can take 5-10 minutes for the search results to be refreshed.
Please also note that only journeys within the next 4 weeks are shown in the A-Z city list.

I would like to delete my user-account and all of the saved data. How do I do this?: With the following link you can completely delete your account: Delete Account
Please be aware that afterwards you will be unable to register any more journeys, and will have to open a new account if you wish to use the site's member features again.

I have just offered a lift on the website, and would like to see how it looks on the site. How can I find my advert quickly?: After submitting a new offer, just click on the "My Lifts" link to go to your lifts list, and there you can view your offer to see how it looks.

I have forgotten my username and/or password, what can I do?: Under the login box in the top right, you will find a link "Forgotten your Password?". Click on this link, and on the next page enter your username (or your email address if you have forgotten your username) and submit. An email will then be sent to you containing a new automatically generated password that you can use to login. You can then change your password to something more easy to remember in your profile page on the website.

I would like to change my username. How can I do this?: Your username can only be changed manually by our Customer Service team. Please go to our Contact page and send us an email with your new desired username.
We will then check if your new username is available, and get back to you.

I would like to upload a picture to my profile. How can I do that?: If you would like to upload a profile picture, please login, and then in the navigation bar go to "My Account" and click on "Profile" in the subheader. In the "Picture" tab, you can upload a picture by clicking on the "Edit Picture" button. On the page that appears please click on the "browse" button to choose and subsequently save you desired profile picture.

Please note that the picture you upload can be a maximum of 500KB and needs to be at least 72 x 72 pixels. It also needs to be in a .jpg, .gif or .png format. Pictures with more than one person in them, and pictures that violate our copyright terms, cannot be accepted.

On the following page you will see links to your uploaded photos, and your profile picture on the right hand side. Please use the selection tool in the page to crop your profile picture to how you want it. Then click on the "Crop" button to save the picture. It will be checked by our Customer Services team and released within 24 working hours.

Your profile picture is only visible to logged-in carpooling.co.uk users with Premium membership, and users in your trusted network. Naturally, your picture will not be indexed by search engines!

In my profile picture, my face is slightly cut off. How can I change this?: Please use the selection tool in the Picture tab of your Profile to edit your profile picture. If you put the cursor on the edge of the selection, you can change the size of the selection by holding the left mouse button and dragging the mouse. Then click the "Crop" button to save the picture.

I am getting a message saying "Please enable javascript in your browser". What should I do?: If this message is appearing, your browser either doesn't support javascript, or has javascript disabled in the setup options. Javascript is needed for many of the features on this website to work properly, and what you can do on the website is very limited without it. Please enable javascript in your browser by doing the following:
Internet Explorer: Select "Tools" in the menu and click on "Internet Options". This opens a new window. In the new window click on the "Security" tab towards the left in the header. Select "Internet" as the zone and click on the "Custom level..." button. This will again open a new window. Scroll down to the heading "Scripting" and under "Active Scripting" check the enable box. Now click on ok at the bottom of the window, and javascript is enabled.

Mozilla Firefox: Select "Tools" in the menu, and click on "Options...". This opens a new window. In the new window click on the "Content" tab, and select the box next to where is says "Enable Javascript". Now click on "OK" and javascript is enabled.

I am getting a message saying "Cookies not enabled". What do I need to do?: Logging-in to your account on carpooling.co.uk is only possible if cookies are enabled. To enable cookies, please follow the instructions below:
Internet Explorer: Select "Tools" in the menu and click on "Internet Options". This opens a new window. In the new window click on the "Privacy" tab, and in the "Settings" area, drag the slider on the scale so that it says "Medium". Then click on "OK", and cookies should be enabled to the extent that you can login to the site.

Mozilla Firefox: Select "Tools" in the menu, and click on "Options...". This opens a new window. In the new window click on the "Privacy" tab, and select the box next to where is says "Enable Cookies". Now click on "OK" and cookies should enabled so that you can login to the site.

How do I know if a journey that is advertised is commercial?: carpooling.co.uk is a platform for offering lifts by private transportation in private vehicles. Any commercial use of our platform is prohibited and in violation of our terms of use. Offers that are against our terms of use, or violate laws, will be removed. We also work closely with the appropriate authorities.

Please help us to identify commercial users and suspicious offers with the link "Report Abuse" which can be found in the details view for every offer.

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