Taxi of Mum and Dad

According to research conducted by Sainsbury’s car insurance, there is an estimated £32bn of unpaid taxi fares accrued by parents driving their kids around each year.

The school run; ferrying the kids around to friends or sporting events is essentially undertaken by Mum or Dads Taxi service so Sainsbury's thought it would be fun to see how much time, effort and money this would equate to should it be done in an actual taxi.

The results are quite staggering.

Did you know that Mum and Dads taxi clocks up a whopping 230million miles a week! This is the equivalent to driving to Mars. Wouldn't fancy it myself! Whatever happened to kids having bikes?

Last week government ministers urged drivers to keep their tanks topped up in light of the looming petrol crisis. At the time of writing the current price per litre is £1.42 for petrol and £1.47 for Diesel so what does this equate to in taxi fares?

On average the weekly clock hits 24.7 miles and 11/4 hours sitting around waiting for the little angels. In a taxi this would cost you a total of £66/week but it varies depending on where you are from:

Obviously London with its congestion and general pricy-ness hits the purse at a weekly tarif of £103/ week whereas North Westerners a mere £54.30. Imagine how rich the taxi drivers would be if Mum and Dad didn't bother with the school run and left it up to the cabbies.

What do these figures ACTUALLY mean?

Well, in a year you will have spent a full week behind the wheel dropping the little blighters off here there ad everywhere. If you were a taxi then they'd owe you big time as up to the age of 17 you could have charged them £170K according to esure. It's definitely cheaper to buy them a bike.

Some parents may argue however that spending time with their children in the car ferrying them around is time well spent. You get to form a bond, ask them about their day and generally be involved with their lives. A week a year though! I think I’d probably rather get a dog. But then that is just me and my cynical ways.

Check out the Sainsbury's calculator online for an estimate of how much you're totting up in upaid fees.