21st Century carpooling: nearing perfection?
Carpooling is a great way to cut your carbon footprint. Throw another warm body in your car and you halve your carbon emissions per person. You also halve the amount of traffic you create if previously have both gone SOV (single occupancy vehicle). It is also a great way to justify your SUV. A commuting SOSUV is about the worst single thing you can do for the environment, the energy shortage and local traffic conditions (sorry to harp on that but its the truth, folks).
I carpooled in the 1980s. Same working hours from the same neighborhood to the same destination and back. Is it as convenient as driving your own vehicle? No. Do you lose that precious privacy SOV use allows? Yes. But do you save money? Oh boy, do you! Do you gain some lively conversation and gossip time? Ditto. Carpooling is a social good and a chance to discuss the events of the days - sports, politics, kids, whatever. Why it might almost be as good as Rush Limbaugh or Imus in the Morning!
One advantage 21st Century car pooling has over prior years - cell phones. No one is incommunicado. You can adjust departure and arrival times down to the minute. Another advantage: MP3 players. Passengers can plug in their ears and "opt out" of any on-going discussion. One item that needs further attention, however, is insurance coverage.
So, if you want to put about $20 extra dollars (about 6 gallons) a week back in your wallet instead of giving them to the Canadians, Mexicans or OPEC, find someone willing to car pool with you. Twenty dollars a week adds up to about $1,000 a year for each of you. Also means less service cost for your car, extending its life and value.
Carpooling + Cell Phones + MP3 Players = Perfect Together!!
(Thanks to Tom P)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dad 6:13PM (12/27/2007)
"So, if you want to put about $20 extra dollars (about 6 gallons) a week back in your wallet"
Actually, quite a bit more. A car can cost 0.40 USD a mile to drive. Far more than the price of 6 US gallons of fuel. Of course, YMMV ;-)
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BlackbirdHighway 6:21PM (12/27/2007)
Another advantage; when the boss comes around about 4:45 and says "Um, yeah, so I'm gonna need you to stay late tonight, so if you could just do that, that would be just great", you can respond; "Sorry boss, I'd love to work late, but my car pool will pick me up in 15 minutes".
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markf 8:25AM (12/28/2007)
Carpooling is wonderful as long as you and your peers work day in and day out at a 9-5 loser job in a city with few or no obligations to respond to corporate crises, have zero family obligations which require changes to your tedious daily schedule, or you have no self-drive to better yourself financially/physically/educationally by actually going somewhere directly from work rather than suiting up in your virtual avatar (yes, its an oxymoron) for another evening of SL. For the rest of us living in the real world rather than blogging a very high mpg private vehicle is the only practical alternative in the future since carpooling combines lack of privacy/no on-demand service disadvantages of public transportation with the high fuel consumption disadvantages of SUVs and typical cars. As a counter to all the 'gushiness', let's not forget the 'when carpools go bad' argument that is rarely written about by one sided greenies - guess it is too hard to Google lists like the one below in order to actually try to write a balanced ABG article. Ha! I used balanced and ABG in the same sentence, must be a first!
-Complicated to reliably organize and difficult to maintain.
-Inability to change travel patterns/needs for emergencies that arise during the day (your child gets sick in school and you can't respond because you have no vehicle).
-Fear of travelling with strangers (slugging in DC/MD/VA - ugh...).
-Forget after-work activities.
-Reduced flexibility in working hours.
-Stress from meeting others' schedules instead of yours/your family.
-No guarantee of a ride if their car breaks down or they are delayed.
-Potential financial obligations over legal liability or insurance implications in accidents.
-Loss of privacy
-Additional travel time picking up/dropping off carpool partners.
-Difficult to run errands on the way to/from work.
-Carpooling works in cities & high population density suburbs, limiting your life choices where you can live (high priced city/suburbs vs lower cost housing much further outside the community).
-If living in some of the few areas in the US with public transportation, switching from public transport to carpooling reduces public transport patronage and places the system at greater risk of failure and/or increases future public transport costs.
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MarkR 9:47AM (12/28/2007)
I'm with markf. While Car pooling is an option for some its not an option for me. Most of the reasons markf mentioned is why I've never tried it. especially the fact my typical work week varies from 40-60 hours at work, the need to drive to meetings then add family obligations etc. etc. etc. Also Personally speaking when you throw in the fact I live in one suburb and work in another and my traffic pattern is polar opposite of 98% of the population. 98% heads towards the big city, I head nine miles further away. Mass transit does not have routes that fit my life therefore my only real alternative is what I do, ride my bike 2-3 days a week.
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BlackbirdHighway 10:36AM (12/28/2007)
MarkF that was an incredibly rude post. Just because someone carpools does not mean that they are in a "loser job". I know plenty of people who make over $100,000 a year who car pool. I would hardly call that a loser job.
It also does not mean that they "have no self-drive to better yourself".
Car pooling is not for everybody, and that's ok.
The fact that you could not make that point without rudely attempting to belittle people that you don't even know indicates that you need to devote a lot of time to "better yourself". I hope you make an attitude improvement one of your resolutions for the coming year.
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Aleksandar Matijaca 11:12AM (1/14/2008)
As somebody who runs a Car Pooling web site,
I am NOT very impressed with the attitude towards
carpooling by Americans. On my site, Canadians and
Europeans (Brits) are much more likely to carpool
then other nationalities. Perhaps there is a culture of leery-ness of getting into a vehicle with a stranger.
My 5cents
Cheers, Alex.
http://www.roomycar.com/
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