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has no relevant policy of insurance. However the rules covering this situation require Mr. Coward was carried for ※hire or reward§. Consequently Mrs. Coward needed to prove that there was a contract in place between Coward and Cole for the lifts to work.

There was clearly an offer of transport and this was accepted. In addition the consideration exchanged by the parties was the service of transport and the money paid by Mr. Coward. However there was a question over how formal this arrangement was so as to amount to an intention to create legal relations. Once again this matter progressed to the Court of Appeal and it was decided that notwithstanding the regular payment of money in return for the lift, it was not so formal as to create a contract. There were no terms as to how long this was to last, what would happen in default of payment or the availability of transport, or anything written down so as to at least make their intention clear.

The practice of colleagues sharing a lift to work (or ※car pooling§) is an accepted and wide spread practice. Parties will usually agree that one will take their car and in return the others will make a contribution towards the petrol costs. This is usually a matter of convenience, reducing costs or even a conscious decision to reduce emissions from each separately taking a vehicle. It cannot be said however that the agreement is so formal as to form a contract for the provision of this service. The contrast is to a previous example, that of public transport. There are no tickets, conditions or terms of agreement and no business or profit making organization is involved. There can be no obligation upon people in this scenario to ensure that transport is always made available to the party that pays. What would happen when the owner of the vehicle went on holiday or there was a shift change? In these circumstances an element of common sense must come into play. Most people will make informal agreements ranging from car pooling to picking up children from school or even being the designated driver on a night out. None of these create a contract as the intention is one of informal assistance or a mutual benefit, not to create legal relations.

Olley v. Marlborough Court Ltd (1949) 1 K.B. 532

Mr. Olley visited the hotel belonging to the defendant. He had not made an in advance booking and upon arrival requested a room for the night. He signed the register and there was no mention at that stage of any other terms or conditions that might impact upon his stay at the hotel. During the course of his stay Mr. Olley discovered that someone had broken into his room and stolen certain property including a fur coat. It subsequently became known that the defendant was negligent in relation to the security within the hotel. Nevertheless, the defendant sought to rely upon an exclusion clause that was placed in the bedroom the claimant stayed in. This stated that the hotel would not accept liability for lost or stolen items belonging to customers.

The question was whether the exclusion clause that was displayed in the bedroom constituted a valid term of the contract. It was not disputed that there were all the required components to for the agreement i.e. offer, acceptance, consideration and intention, but that was not to say that all the terms the hotel sought to rely upon could actually be enforced against Mr. Olley. As we mentioned above, te