Nearly two-thirds (61 percent) of Australian parents and carers spend up to eight hours every week on “taxi duty”, according to new research from Allianz Australia.

The national survey also found that more than one in ten (12 percent) parents spend nine or more hours a week picking up and dropping off their children from activities.

“Allianz knows that Australia’s parents and carers work tirelessly to take care of their kids, not just doing the morning and after-school pick-ups but getting them to all of their other activities – whether it’s footy practice on the weekends, or after-school music lessons,” said Allianz Australia Chief Market Manager Nick Adams. “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.”

When it comes to splitting the parent taxi duties among mums and dads, the research found that both parents spend a similar amount of hours per week driving the children. Yet it revealed that parents could reduce the amount of time they spent in the car if they shared the taxiing load, with only one in three (35 percent) Aussie parents and carers carpooling with other drivers.

Parents’ taxi hours spike on the weekends, with nearly half (44 percent) of parents reporting spending up to three hours driving their kids around every Saturday, and more than a third (36 percent) reporting the same on a Sunday.