The cost of owning a car these days can be quite daunting. The maintenance, gasoline, repair cost, fixing a dent or a scratch, parking, etc. Well, a concept known as personal vehicle sharing will be tested in California. A new law would allow Californians to rent their own personal vehicles by the hour.
There are currently car sharing companies now, but with the new law allowing personal cars to be used too, then there will be a massive amount of cars that can be shared among people who don't want to carry the expense of owning their own vehicle. People in the car sharing business say that there is currently a fleet of 11,000 car share vehicles. Now that personal vehicles can be added to the pool, there could be ten times that amount of cars available to the public.
Not only would the concept help people with the cost of owning their cars, it will also help car sharing companies build an inventory of vehicles without making a large investment buying their own cars. These businesses can make deals with car owners to increase their fleets and could then offer vehicles for a lot less money per hour.
The law requires people who are interested in sharing their vehicles to enhance their personal auto insurance policies to increase their coverage for injury or death to one person and damage to property. Currently, California's minimum coverage for injury or death is $15,000. People who intend to share their vehicle will be required to have coverage of $30,000 for injury or death to a person and $5,000 for damage to property. And to rent their cars through car sharing businesses, the car of that personal owner will have to be well maintained and the vehicle would have to be a 2004 or later model year. Moreover, the car would have to be equipped with a reader that will allow access to it using a electronic fob and a tracking device so that the person who rents the car can be billed properly for its use.
A pilot program of a car sharing company now in place in San Francisco pays the car owner 40 percent of the amount paid by a renter and payment is made to the owner of the vehicle via Paypal or electronic bank transfer. Of course, people who may be considering sharing the vehicle may worry about it being damaged by a renter. And there would probably be concern that the owner may need the car when someone else is using it. Issues like this will have to be settled in a satisfactory manner to calm the concerns of the true owner of the vehicle. Still, it is something for a car owner to consider especially if he or she doesn't use their car too often.