For me a tip is not primarily based on the cost of the service (which in this case includes quite a bit of gas, the usage and maintenance of the vehicle, administration cost, driver salary, cost of operating a business, plus profit margin) but on the type of service. It is an amount paid exactly to one individual providing a particular type of service. The fact that the driver is supposed to be punctual, courteous, helpful and -above all- a safe driver MUST be taken for granted and is thus included in the price of the service as a whole. Thus any tip is more of a symbolic nature and is more an act of goodwill than of a percentage based tipping scheme.

But I also find the US restaurant tipping scheme to be ridiculous, so my opinion is untypical. We've had the tipping discussion before and all possible arguments have been made. Non specific to women, by the way.

If Ginger feels like tipping generously instead of gingerly, she should do that. Personally, I find $20 borders the ridiculous, $5 borders the stingy or very reasonable or European (i.e. ME) and $10 might be in line with an American attitude.

I have tipped $20 for a person pushing me in a wheelchair at the airport. But that was 30 minutes of constant physical work for a woman pushing a man and dealing with his luggage. For a man to drive a woman in a motorized and comfortable vehicle shouldn't deserve this much of a tip just because it is a luxury product and environment. Otherwise, to keep the scale, we would have to tip the wheelchair woman $50-100. That would raise her salary far above the salary of a university professor with a Ph.D. in humanities (based on $80k/y at 45 weeks x 40hrs resulting in an hourly salary of $44). Besides the fact that university prof. is probably the more agreeable job overall, it is also the more demanding job in all regards but the physical one. And it delivers a higher value to society at large. Nobody ever tipped a professor, besides that even gifts of gratitude worth more than $20 are usually not allowed.

All this to say that $20 on top of the salary for performing the job he is paid to do anyway and that doesn't demand a whole lot of training or know-how seems like an awful lot. Plus, as the a priori question indicates, she doesn't even know, if he will at least do his job in a normal fashion, let alone a fashion that would command a tip doubling his salary.

Till