When most of us think of “carpooling,” we think of being stuck in a vehicle with a bunch of noisy people. In most cases, we would rather spend the money to rent a car rather than carpool. Typically, most people have a negative outlook on the subject. However, with rising gas prices over the years, carpooling has never looked better. Carpooling, by definition, is the shared use of a car by the driver and one or more passengers, usually for commuting. It is also known as “car sharing,” “ride sharing,” and “lift sharing”.

Bring a Friend!

The 1996 movie, Carpool (starring Tom Arnold and David Paymer), painted a fairly accurate picture of a carpool experience when it showed a father taking his children to school before going to work. Along the way, he picks up several of his children’s friends because he is part of community of parents involved in a carpool system. Many elementary schools have carpools that either the school or the parents have organized, in which parents will usually take turns picking up their children’s friends for school and/or drop them off home afterwards. This is a great idea because it increases parental involvement and responsibility, and it also teaches safety.

Carpools aren’t only used at schools, however. Many businesses have organized carpool groups as well. Some businesses will acutally rent vehicles for the sole purpose of using it for carpooling. By sharing the ride, carpoolers save money on fuel, insurance and car maintenance. In a lot of cases nowadays, carpooling can also reduce the amount of time spent on the road through the use of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, which can be seen on a lot of major highways.

Another great benefit of carpooling is that it reduces traffic congestion by reducing the number of people driving on the road. Think about that for a minute. Let’s say there are ten people in a carpool vehicle…Now, imagine if each of those people decided to drive themselves to wherever they were going. Taking it a step further, think about how much LESS traffic there would be if more people decided to carpool. Also, as a result of increased carpooling, there are less vehicles on the roadways which leads to less gas emissions, which translates to less air pollution. Knowing all of this, how can you go wrong?

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Tags: General Auto //