Driver Terms

Last updated: October 16, 2026

These Driver Terms apply every time you publish a trip on RIDEMATE and for as long as you have a trip with Riders booked. They are part of, and incorporate, the RIDEMATE Terms of Use (https://ridemate.ai/terms-of-use), the Community Guidelines (https://ridemate.ai/community-guidelines), the Cancellation & Refund Policy (https://ridemate.ai/cancellation-policy), and the Trip Safety Policy (in the app, under Profile > Privacy & Safety > Trip Safety). Capitalized words mean what the Terms of Use say they mean. If these Driver Terms and the Terms of Use conflict, these Driver Terms control for driver-specific matters, except that Sections 16 to 22 of the Terms of Use always control.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU PUBLISH A TRIP

THESE DRIVER TERMS CONTAIN A RELEASE OF RIDEMATE'S LIABILITY (SECTION 12), A BINDING ARBITRATION AGREEMENT (SECTION 13), AND A CLASS-ACTION WAIVER (SECTION 13). They affect your legal rights, including your right to sue RIDEMATE and to go to court. You can opt out of arbitration within 30 days (Section 13.4).

YOUR PERSONAL AUTO INSURANCE MAY NOT COVER TRIPS WITH RIDERS (SECTION 4). Ask your insurer in writing before you drive.

Each time you publish, the app shows you a "Before you publish" screen. When you tick "I understand the Driver Terms contain a release of RIDEMATE's liability, a binding arbitration agreement, and a class-action waiver," you are agreeing to Sections 12 and 13 below.

1. Your relationship with RIDEMATE

1.1 You are not our driver. RIDEMATE is not a taxi or rideshare company. You are not RIDEMATE's employee, contractor, agent, or driver. You are a student sharing the cost of a trip you are already making, in your own vehicle, on your own behalf.

1.2 You are in control of your trips. You decide whether to publish a trip, when and where you go, how many seats to offer, what contribution to ask for (within the cost formula), and your route. RIDEMATE does not set hours, require a minimum number of trips, require you to accept any Rider, or stop you from using other apps or doing other work.

1.3 Trips you were already making. Only publish trips you would make anyway, for your own reasons. Do not publish trips for the purpose of transporting Riders, and do not use RIDEMATE to run a transportation business.

2. Who can drive

To publish a trip you must, at all times while you have a published trip:

be 18 or older and meet the eligibility rules in the Terms of Use (including being a currently enrolled student with a valid school email address);
hold a valid driver's license for the vehicle you drive, and tell us immediately if it is suspended, revoked, restricted, or expires (there is no minimum number of years you must have been licensed);
drive a vehicle that is legally registered, roadworthy, in safe working order, and has a working seatbelt for every occupant;
have current auto insurance that meets at least Florida's legal minimums (and those of any state you drive in) for the vehicle, and keep it in force; and
keep your license, vehicle, and insurance details in the app accurate and current. The app will not let you publish if your insurance expiration date is missing or has passed.

RIDEMATE may ask for documents at any time. Our checks are limited (see Sections 4.3 and 4.4 of the Terms of Use) and do not transfer any of these duties to us.

3. Driving safely and legally

You are solely responsible for your driving, your vehicle, and your conduct. You must:

obey all traffic laws and speed limits;
never drive under the influence of alcohol, cannabis, drugs, or any medication that affects driving;
never drive while tired, and never use a phone while driving except hands-free as the law allows;
not carry more people than you have seatbelts for;
not carry weapons, illegal drugs, or hazardous materials on a trip;
treat Riders with respect and follow the Community Guidelines; and
let a Rider end the trip early at any safe location on request.

4. INSURANCE: WARNING AND CERTIFICATION

4.1 WARNING: YOUR PERSONAL POLICY MAY NOT COVER THIS. Many personal auto insurance policies exclude coverage when the car is used to carry passengers "for a fee or charge" or as a "public or livery conveyance." Only recovering your costs does not necessarily avoid that exclusion. Florida law allows insurers to keep these exclusions, and no Florida court has decided that cost sharing is outside them. If your insurer denies a claim, you could be personally responsible for injuries to your Riders, other people, and property.

4.2 RIDEMATE does not insure you, your vehicle, or your Riders, and makes no representation about whether your policy covers carpooling with cost sharing.

4.3 Ask your insurer in writing before you drive. Before you publish your first trip, you must contact your auto insurer and get written confirmation (for example, an email from your insurer or agent) that your policy covers carrying passengers who share trip costs, or add an endorsement or policy that covers it.

4.4 Your certification. When you tick "I have written confirmation from my insurer, or an endorsement, that covers cost-shared carpooling" in the app, you certify that this is true. You also agree to:

keep that written confirmation and show it to RIDEMATE on request;
re-confirm it with your insurer once a year, at each policy renewal, and whenever you change insurer, policy, or vehicle; and
stop publishing trips immediately if your coverage lapses, is cancelled, or your insurer tells you carpooling is not covered.

A false certification is a serious breach of these Driver Terms.

4.5 Accidents. If you are in an accident during a trip, stop, call 911 if anyone is hurt, exchange information as the law requires, notify your insurer, and tell RIDEMATE at contact@ridemate.ai.

5. Cost sharing only: no profit

5.1 You may only recover your costs. What Riders contribute helps cover your actual costs for the trip: fuel, tolls, and wear on your car. It is not a fare; it is a shared-cost contribution. You may not charge more than your costs, and you must not make a profit.

5.2 The cost formula. The per-seat contribution you set cannot exceed the limit in Section 7.2 of the Terms of Use: (driving distance × the IRS standard business mileage rate) ÷ the number of seats you offer, with a maximum of $75.00 and a minimum of $2.00 per seat. The app enforces this. You agree not to try to get around it, for example by entering a false route or distance, offering fewer seats than you really have and then taking extra passengers, or splitting one trip into several.

5.3 Your promise about costs. When you publish a trip, you confirm that the total contributions you could receive for it do not exceed your real cost of making it. If your actual costs are lower than the formula's limit (for example, a very fuel-efficient car), set a lower contribution. The one exception is the $2.00 per-seat minimum, which applies for payment-processing reasons: on a very short trip, the app may not let you ask for less than $2.00 per seat, and charging that minimum is not a breach of this Section 5.

5.4 No surge, no tips, no extras. RIDEMATE never uses surge, dynamic, or peak-time pricing. You must not ask for, accept, or keep:

tips, gratuities, or "thank-you" payments of any kind;
cash, payment-app transfers, or any payment outside the app for a trip arranged on RIDEMATE;
gifts of money or anything of value in exchange for a trip; or
any amount above the contribution shown in the app.

If a Rider offers you any of these, decline. RIDEMATE does not pay Drivers bonuses, incentives, referral rewards, or guarantees, and no part of any RIDEMATE fee is ever paid to Drivers.

5.5 Records. RIDEMATE keeps a record of each trip's route, distance, seats, contribution, and payments to show that the cost formula was respected. You agree we may keep and use these records for that purpose.

6. Publishing a trip and the ride lock

6.1 Accurate details. Your trip listing must be accurate: date, departure time, pickup and drop-off points, route, number of seats, vehicle, and contribution.

6.2 Ride lock. Once the first Rider has booked a seat, the trip's key details (date, departure time, pickup and drop-off points, and per-seat contribution) are locked. If you need to change any of them, you must cancel the trip (every Rider is refunded in full, and the driver-cancellation rules in Section 7 apply) and publish a new one. This protects Riders who booked based on the details they saw.

6.3 Companions. A Rider may book several seats for companions who do not have a RIDEMATE account (Rider Terms 2.3). Companions count as Riders on your trip, and the booking Rider is responsible for them. Do not carry anyone who has not been booked through the app.

7. Cancellations and strikes

7.1 If you cancel a trip, or remove a Rider, every affected Rider gets a full refund, at any time. You receive nothing for that booking.

7.2 Cancel as early as possible, and always through the app, so Riders can make other plans.

7.3 Strikes protect Riders. Riders plan their travel and pay in advance around the trips you publish. To protect them, you get a strike when, on a trip where at least one Rider has paid for a seat, you:

cancel the trip;
remove a Rider who had paid; or
don't show up, as confirmed by our review (Section 8.4).

One trip counts as one strike at most. A seat nobody paid for never leads to a strike, and a cancellation made by RIDEMATE never counts as your strike.

7.4 Two strikes in a semester means a 30-day pause. If you get 2 strikes in the same semester, you will not be able to publish new trips for 30 days from your second strike. Trips you already published are not affected. Semesters follow the University of Florida academic calendar, as set out in the Cancellation & Refund Policy, and strikes reset to zero at the start of each semester.

7.5 Mistakes. If you think a strike was a mistake (for example, you cancelled because of an emergency or a genuine safety concern), email contact@ridemate.ai. The RIDEMATE team may remove the strike or lift a pause.

7.6 Strikes are not tied to how many trips you publish, how many Riders you accept, or any acceptance rate. RIDEMATE has no such targets.

7.7 Strikes and pauses apply as set out in the Cancellation & Refund Policy in effect at the time of the cancellation, removal, or no-show. If this Section and that policy differ, the policy controls.

8. No-shows: your marking duties

8.1 When you may mark a Rider as a no-show. You may mark a Rider as a no-show only if all of these are true:

you were at the published pickup point at the scheduled departure time;
you waited at least 10 minutes after the scheduled departure time;
you tried to reach the Rider through the in-app chat during that time; and
the Rider did not arrive and did not cancel.

8.2 Honesty. Mark a no-show only when it really happened. Marking a Rider who showed up, or whom you did not wait for, is a serious breach of these Driver Terms and may lead to suspension, and the Rider will be refunded.

8.3 Disputes. Riders can dispute a no-show within 48 hours after you mark it (see the Rider Terms). The payment stays on hold while a dispute is open. You agree to cooperate with our review, including by answering our questions within 48 hours. We decide based on the trip record, messages, and any evidence both sides give. If we decide the Rider was wrongly marked, the Rider is refunded in full and you get a strike.

8.4 If you don't show up, or you leave before the scheduled departure time, you must cancel the trip in the app so Riders are refunded. A Rider can also report that you didn't show up within 48 hours of the departure time; if our review confirms it, every Rider on the trip is refunded in full and you get a strike. You also get a strike if the Rider accepts a refund you offered (the refund goes to that Rider; the other Riders' payments stay on hold until 48 hours after departure).

9. Getting paid

9.1 Payout setup. To receive contributions you must set up a payout account with our payment processor, Stripe, and accept Stripe's Connected Account Agreement. If you do not complete payout setup within 30 days after a trip, the contributions for that trip are refunded to the Riders.

9.2 Timing. Contributions are held in RIDEMATE's account with Stripe and transferred to your Stripe account after the trip's departure time, usually about 24 hours after, as long as the trip was not cancelled and no no-show report or dispute about it is open. The transfer waits until the 48-hour window for Riders to report a problem has closed if the app has no record of you starting the trip at the pickup: you tapped neither Start Ride nor Finish Ride, you started the trip away from the pickup, or the app could not check your location when you tapped Start Ride. Stripe's card processing fee (about 2.9% + 30¢ per payment) is deducted from the amount you receive. RIDEMATE keeps no part of the contribution.

9.3 Refunds and reversals. If a Rider is refunded under the Cancellation & Refund Policy, or a no-show is overturned, the refunded amount is not paid to you. If it has already been paid to you, RIDEMATE may deduct it from your future payouts until it is recovered.

9.4 Taxes. RIDEMATE does not give tax advice. Stripe may be required to send you tax forms depending on the amounts you receive. You are responsible for your own tax obligations.

10. Your Riders' information

You may use Riders' names, photos, and messages only to carry out the trip. Do not save, share, or use them for anything else, and do not contact a Rider outside the app after the trip unless they have agreed.

Riders can share the trip. For their safety, a Rider booked on your trip can share its details with anyone they choose: your first name and last initial, your university, your car and its license plate, and the trip's live status.

11. Your risks

11.1 You accept the three kinds of risk described in Section 16 of the Terms of Use: risks of car travel, risks from other users (including your Riders), and risks from how RIDEMATE runs the platform, including RIDEMATE's own ordinary negligence.

11.2 RIDEMATE does not check Riders' backgrounds. Use your own judgment. You may decline or remove a Rider for any lawful, non-discriminatory reason, and the Rider will be refunded in full (removing a Rider who has paid counts as a strike under Section 7.3; if you remove a Rider for a genuine safety reason, tell us under Section 7.5).

12. RELEASE OF RIDEMATE'S LIABILITY

This Section restates, for Drivers, the release in Section 17 of the Terms of Use. If the two differ, Section 17 of the Terms of Use controls.

12.1 BY PUBLISHING A TRIP, YOU RELEASE THE RIDEMATE PARTIES FROM ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO ANY TRIP YOU PUBLISH OR DRIVE, THE CONDUCT OF ANY RIDER OR OTHER USER, OR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, INCLUDING CLAIMS FOR BODILY INJURY, DEATH, EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, PROPERTY OR VEHICLE DAMAGE, AND FINANCIAL LOSS, AND INCLUDING CLAIMS CAUSED IN WHOLE OR IN PART BY THE ORDINARY NEGLIGENCE, NEGLIGENT ACTS, OR NEGLIGENT OMISSIONS OF ANY RIDEMATE PARTY.

12.2 THIS RELEASE COVERS THIS TRIP AND EVERY FUTURE TRIP YOU PUBLISH OR DRIVE, AND EVERY CURRENT AND FUTURE VERSION OF THE APP.

12.3 It does not cover fraud, intentional misconduct, recklessness, willful or wanton conduct, or gross negligence by a RIDEMATE Party; your right to be paid contributions you are owed under these Driver Terms; your claims against any Rider or other user; or anything the law does not allow to be released.

12.4 RIDEMATE's liability is also limited as described in Section 18 of the Terms of Use (the greater of $100 or the RIDEMATE fees you paid in the prior 12 months, with the exceptions listed there). You agree to indemnify RIDEMATE for third-party claims arising from your own conduct, including your driving, your vehicle, and any breach of Sections 2 to 5 of these Driver Terms, as described in Section 19 of the Terms of Use.

13. BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS-ACTION WAIVER

This Section restates, for Drivers, the Arbitration Agreement in Section 21 of the Terms of Use, which applies in full. If the two differ, Section 21 of the Terms of Use controls.

13.1 ARBITRATION. Any Dispute between you and RIDEMATE (as defined in Section 21 of the Terms of Use) will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act, administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, and not in court, except that either side may use small-claims court for an individual claim that qualifies. You must first send a Notice of Dispute to contact@ridemate.ai and give us 30 days to try to resolve it.

13.2 CLASS-ACTION WAIVER. YOU MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST RIDEMATE ONLY IN YOUR INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING.

13.3 JURY-TRIAL WAIVER. YOU GIVE UP THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL for Disputes with RIDEMATE, to the extent permitted by law.

13.4 30-DAY OPT-OUT. You can opt out of arbitration by emailing contact@ridemate.ai, subject "Arbitration Opt-Out," with your full name, your account email, and a statement that you opt out of the RIDEMATE Arbitration Agreement. You must do this within 30 days after you first accept the Terms of Use, or, if you had an account before September 25, 2026, within 30 days after you first accept this version (the first time you confirm a "Before you book" or "Before you publish" screen on or after September 25, 2026). Opting out does not affect the release in Section 12 or any other part of these Driver Terms.

13.5 Florida law governs these Driver Terms. A Dispute that is not arbitrated is heard in the state courts in Miami-Dade County, Florida, or the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, as described in Section 22 of the Terms of Use.

14. Changes, and the rest of the rules

14.1 If we make a material change to these Driver Terms, including to the cost formula, strikes, or insurance requirements, we will tell you at least 30 days in advance and ask you to accept again before you publish another trip (Section 23 of the Terms of Use).

14.2 Breaking these Driver Terms may lead to trips being removed and your account being restricted, suspended, or closed (Section 20 of the Terms of Use).

14.3 Everything else (accounts, conduct, ratings, intellectual property, severability, and contact details) is in the Terms of Use.

Questions: contact@ridemate.ai · Legal notices and opt-outs: contact@ridemate.ai · RIDE MATE LLC, 661 NE 68th Street, Miami, Florida 33138, USA