Is anyone car pooling?

[Julie Rains]

Has anyone started carpooling since gas prices increased or have you been carpooling all along?

I have been carpooling with a neighbor when our kids go to the same activities. It's more convenient and saves money.

The main obstacles I have found to carpooling with kids is not having enough space and proper restraints for a group of kids as I drive a Corolla rather than a van or SUV; now that my kids are older and taller than me, though, I can let them sit in the front seat, freeing up more space in the back.

Timing may be a concern if your carpool buddy is not prompt, or if you are running late and then cause others to be late.

As a kid in 2nd or 3rd grade, I was forgotten by one of the carpool drivers; can't remember the outcome but I may have walked the mile or so home from school. At the time, elementary schools just let out --- there were no monitors to make sure everyone was discharged safely.

Does anyone have carpooling successes, failures, obstacles overcome to share?

[pyccku]

I have been carpooling with my husband for more than 2 years now. We started when a pipeline burst and gas went above $3 in AZ. It went back down, but we kept carpooling.

For a while, we were all driving in together, dropping the kids off at school, then dropping me off with my bike, then he would go to work. I would ride the bike to his work in the afternoon to fetch the car, pick up the kids, then pick him up. He got done at 4:00 pm, I was done at 3:30, so it worked out for us.

Now the kids are at a different school and he gets off at 3:40. So it still works for us. He ends up going in to work about 45 minutes early every day, but he uses the time to work on projects, surf the net, etc.

We have a Prius, so it makes it even better for us! 5 people in one car, 50 mpg = 250 people-miles per gallon!

[Julie Rains]

I love the way you combined more than one form of transportation (bike and car) and carpooled.

[Jennifer Lynn]

I haven't carpooled as of yet but have drastically cut out frivolous driving. My next big investment will be purchasing a reliable bike!

[kristi-lynn]

Well, if you're looking for a really easy way to carpool with people you don't even necessarily need to know, try goloco.org. It's easy to sign up and pretty safe (and if you're on facebook you can actually just add the application for goloco and invite your friends to take trips with you and vice versa). I recommend it to everyone because I use it and it's really easy to search for trips and just sort of add yourself as a driver or as a passenger, and the other cool part is people can pay their share for the gas and the car maintenance through paypal right through the website (unless the driver decides they want to make it a free trip because they're so generous... which is rare) but yea, if you really want to try carpooling but aren't that outgoing, it's pretty easy. Ideally it's used for long trips or trips to the grocery store or even like students going home from college for a weekend (like my case) just because it's fast enough to go on the site, add a trip and have people sign up to go with you. I highly recommend it.

that's about it for my sales pitch... haha (and no, I do not run or make any claims to ownership or maintenance of this site, I just think it's a really great idea)

[jayfromfree411]

You can also find carpoolers via your local craigslist.

[kickchk]

My husband and I carpool together to work. Since we work in the same building (different companies) it just makes sense. However there are times when I'll have to work until a later time, and then we drive seperate, but that only comes around about once every twelve weeks.