Parent driving duties a real challenge

Many parents are spending eight hours a week driving around their kids.

Do you feel like you’re constantly driving around the kids?

You’re not alone, with nearly two-thirds of Aussie parents reporting that they spend eight hours a week as a ‘parent taxi’.

There are also 12 per cent of parents who say they spend nine hours a week or more behind the wheel as they drive the kids around to various commitments including school, swimming lessons and sports practice.

These driving habits have been revealed in a new national survey Allianz Australia, which shows parents should consider carpooling with other mums and dads to share the driving load.

The survey revealed only one in three Australian parents and carers carpooled with others. This is despite 61 per cent saying that the spent eight hours a week ferrying their kids around.

Encouragingly, mums and dads appear to be splitting ‘parent taxi’ duties about equally, with both reporting spending a similar amount of hours each week driving around their children.

According to the survey, 29 per cent of mums said they spent eight hours each week doing ‘parent taxi’ duties, while 32 per cent of dads reported spending the same time behind the wheel.

The parent taxi hours really seem to clock up on the weekend. Of the survey respondents, 44 per cent said they drove their kids for up to three hours every Saturday and 36 per cent said they did the same on a Sunday.

“It’s amazing how quickly the ‘parent taxi’ hours can add up and become a big challenge for mums and dads as they try to balance family life with work and other priorities – and, of course, traffic,” Allianz Australia Chief Market Manager Nick Adams said.