Not happening for me any time soon. I'm in a small city near a larger metro. No bus, train, or ride-sharing is available. Varied start and ending work hours make carpooling much harder.
I had a lovely commute combining car-pooling with bike trails, and the more regularly-employed members got me out of the free overtime at my gig.
There is also ride-sharing with 'net-mediated arrangements and/or ID cards or (Gasp!) Hitchiking. It has alwaysy been good for me, although I've got friends with sad stories.
I have a theory about carpooling. I think there is a point somewhere that it is less economical to carpool, and take two cars. The variable is persons weight, the constant is speed and mileage. A car at 55 MPG is getting 30 MPG. The engine is rated at 140HP. That 140HP pulls the 2-ton car, and its 180lb driver. Add another person, and the engine burns more fuel, but still less than two cars. Keep adding weight/people until the car burns so much fuel, its better to even the load out, and take two cars. I have no real numbers here, but thats my idea. I would, however, like to somehow give my idea some ground to stand on, but until I get my license, it will remain a theory.
I would like to take some of my friends to school though. I live the furthest away from my school as anybody can (COMPLETE truth. The distict line crosses my neighbors yard.) so they are on my way to school, but daily carpools with, like you said, chronic tardy, just isnt for me. I NEED a time cushion.
I used to carpool. I had a rule - I'm here on time, you had best be. If not, you'd better have taxi money on stand by.
My friends were only ever late once.
Besides, that, I've spent time hitching rides, I've caught rides on rail cars, I've even hopped on flat beds with pipes or whatever the load of the day was. It's not as bad as it seems, I had fun. When they stop at a light or intersection near your stop, hop off, and noone's the wiser.
Some larger metro areas have "slug" lanes now, where they've developed a hitch-hiker program with etiquette. It's a very efficient random carpool method, and if you screw up too many times, you get excluded from the "society" that it's built.
Park and rides are a great place to park - and ride. Not the bus, man! Get on a bike and finish your commute!
Many of us can't carpool in the traditional sense, but there is a possibility that your routes all converge at a point somewhere away from work where it might be convenient to pack it all in one vehicle and finish the commute, saving fuel for some of you, at least.
It's not always about what you can save yourself, sometimes, it's about how much you can save others, as well.
You can also simply ask that someone from the group buy you lunch on the days that you're the group driver, which saves you and everyone else, because lunch is cheap, and they can all split the cost to "pay you back".
I don't live in the country but most of the other reasons apply. My life is always messy so it's hard to ask someone to adapt to me.
If I were carpooling I wouldn't hypermile off-the-bat because 1 person at 50 MPG => 50 MPG per person, but 2 people at 35 MPG => 70 MPG per person. If I was lucky, however, I'd bring the carpooler over to the "green side" and maybe push it back up to 45 MPG => 90 MPG per person. What is interesting is that the ScanGauge would allow me to "charge for gas", just like a taxi!
I don't live in the country but most of the other reasons apply. My life is always messy so it's hard to ask someone to adapt to me.
If I were carpooling I wouldn't hypermile off-the-bat because 1 person at 50 MPG => 50 MPG per person, but 2 people at 35 MPG => 70 MPG per person. If I was lucky, however, I'd bring the carpooler over to the "green side" and maybe push it back up to 45 MPG => 90 MPG per person. What is interesting is that the ScanGauge would allow me to "charge for gas", just like a taxi!
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