Safety Resources

Car-Pooling

Car-pooling offers the win-win benefit of shared financial resources and a lightened load on your local road and highway system. (Plus, a little company couldn't hurt now and then, could it?) Here are a few tips to get you on the road to sharing the road.

Getting Started

Car-pooling doesn't have to be an everyday occurrence. Assess your own personal schedule and look for opportunities to share resources with co-workers, neighbors or other community members.
Ask around at work. You never know which co-workers are also your neighbors till you ask. And they might be willing to split the commuting cost.
Talk to your Neighbors. The flipside of asking at work is finding out if any of your neighbors work near you.
If you have a long commute to work, find out if any of your co-workers live along the way and offer to share the ride.
Contact your local county or state municipality's roads or transportation department and inquire about "Park & Ride" programs or centrally located "Car Pool" lots.
Talk to other parents at your day care facility or school.
Ins and Outs

Many metropolitan areas already encourage car-pooling via the "Diamond Lane" (lanes in which only vehicles carrying more than one person can travel during peak traffic hours) and other car pooling perks.
Set up an alternating or rotating driving schedule. This way, one person doesn't have to do all the driving and each person can save on vehicle maintenance.
If you're successful in setting up a car pool, ask your employer about promoting car or vanpool efforts in company newsletters or with postings in office common areas.
Better still, your company may reward employees who ride share with discounted parking or other incentives. It can't hurt to ask.
More and more organizations, employers and communities are posting ride-share registration resources online. Try using a search engine such as Google or Alta Vista to find "ride sharing" or "car or van pooling" resources in your area.