Micro hire vehicles

Although I am basically a fan of micro hire vehicles, such as Zipcar (and the former Streetcar), I am rather disappointed by their pricing structure. I drive so rarely that I don't want to pay £59.50 for a year's Zipcar membership in case I never use it. I also note that they give you a free (at the point of use) mileage allowance, which expires after a certain time, and the daily hire fee includes up to 40 miles "free".

I was briefly a member of Streetcar, though I never used one of their cars. They were a commercial organisation (as is Zipcar) and they sent me plenty of e-mails to try to get me to drive one of their cars. There's a paradox here.

If anything, I need a true pay as you go microhire. I'm prepared to pay a small one off fee for joining - and this should stop (or reduce the amount of) people joining frivolously, but then I want to pay for only what I use - the Oystercard model. I accept that a modest one off fee per hiring will reduce hires for very short journeys. As things stand, whilst it will work out cheaper than car ownership, there's still the same incentive, albeit much smaller,  to use a car to get your money's worth.

I suppose in fairness the target market here is car owners, rather than non car owners, but I would quite like to have the insurance policy of having a nearby car for hire for short periods.