Thoughtriders.com

Imagine a day, 10 years from now. What do you see? A gigantic technological leap? Amazing infrastructure? High-tech means of communication and transportation?

Well, what I see is this. Overcrowded public spaces. Massive shortage of fuel and non-renewable sources of energy & power. Population multiplied by at least 10 times. Optimum connectivity but no resources. And most importantly, pedestrians is history.

Where does this brings us? We are living in an age where our resources exhaust more rapidly than our means of developing them. All this because our planning and strategy are all channelized towards an aggressively nuclear thinking. Individualism is gaining prominence day by day. We all want our own mobile phones, our own houses and our own mode of conveyance that settles down to nothing less than a four-wheeler. The bigger the better.

Nevertheless, have you ever given a wise thought to the increasingly limited spaces available at our disposal? Never. None of us is willing to do our share of thinking. What is more ironical is that the solutions are always on the back of our mind. However, we only think of them when we do not have the resource. In the opposite case, this never matters.

This brings me to introduce a very old concept of ‘Carpooling’ – car sharing as it known popularly. Carpooling is the use of a common mode of conveyance, especially cars, for commuting to a common destination – like offices – by a group of individuals. This basically translates to enhanced economy, optimum resource utilisation, social bonding, contribution to the Go Green cause and lastly it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket.

Advantages

Though it looks childish to spell out the benefits of sharing to a world full of people who are fond of sharing. Alas it’s only online. Check out the blogs, you tube, flickr, orkut and other such social platforms where we all want the world to see and share what we have. I should better list it down, just to refurbish the memory.

• You can save money

True. Sharing a car for going to routine common destination can save you money. Consider this. An average office goer spends at least 250 bucks to cover a distance of 60 kms everyday – to and fro office. This stands to an annual expense of roughly Rs 80000 or 1800 USD to cover a distance of approximately 19000 kms. Sharing a car will which seats a minimum of five persons can reduce this monthly expenditure to the tune of more than 5 times. Straight, isn’t it.

• Be a Green activist

With such a busy lifestyle you will actually never get time to plant a tree. Admit it, you won’t. Now carpooling will indirectly make you a saviour of the mother earth. Sharing a car while on your way to work will reduce the number of vehicles drastically on road. This will considerably reduce the CO₂ content in the atmosphere and thus a greener, cleaner earth.

• Traffic woes will be a thing of the past

Amazing but true. It can actually make way to the Ripley’s Believe it or not. The solution to the most complex problem faced by countries worldwide in maintaining a smooth traffic mechanism lies in carpooling. When you share a car or take turns doing so in using your own vehicles this reduces five cars

 on road for every one car. Understand it this way. If there are 100000 cars on road on an average everyday, carpooling will bring down this number by at least 4-5 times thereby reducing the ever-increasing congestion.

• Save on precious fuel

One study suggests that we only have sufficient fuel to last till 2050 till we exhaust it all. Carpooling can again bring down the fuel consumption by at least five times of the total amount of fuel consumed daily by travelling independently.

I can list down a hundred thousand benefits of using a carpool facility but what doesn’t come to my mind is even a single adverse effect of using this mechanism. I wonder if some of you can suggest me this. So get set to rock the road with your own gang of poolers - because the more the merrier will always hold true in the party of life.

And yes don’t forget to respect other person’s property as well as privacy – the carpool etiquette.