Kids rack up £170,000 taxi bill

While it is a common complaint from parents that their children treat them like a taxi service, new research reveals that the cliché is all too true.

Insurer esure.com reveals that if parents charged the going rate for a Hackney cab, for the journeys they provide for their kids, they would be earning annual incomes to the tune of £10,000.

The average journey a parent provides for their child is a 12 mile round trip, which would cost around £35 in a black cab.

The research estimates that the average child receives approximately 3,500 miles of free travel a year, which if paid for, would add up to around £170,000 by the time they have reached driving age.

ICM, which carried out the research for esure.com, finds that mothers are the most put upon when it comes to ferrying the children around, doing 80 per cent of the taxiing.

It is also reveals that mums actually spend 40 per cent of their total driving time either picking up their kids from school, taking them to parties and to other leisure activities such as Cubs and Brownies.

In spite of the heavy burden on parents' time and the clear, but perhaps draconian, gains to be made from charging their children for the journeys, 76 per cent of mums and dads said they would never consider asking for money from their kids.

However, given that nearly half of the time (for 1,600 miles a year), parents are ferrying friends of their children around, there is an argument for asking for petrol money from the friends' parents.

Mike Pickard, head of risk and underwriting at esure.com, said: "Parents may not ask other parents for money towards petrol costs as they have a reciprocal agreement or are embarrassed to ask for cash.

"There are no issues – insurance wise – for asking for money toward petrol costs as you can carry passengers in return for a mileage payment as long as there is no element of profit." XXX