RideSearch – Carpool For A “Change”

You've never thought twice about using your car to "get away" from it all before, but with the price of gas going up virtually everyday you are forced to think about driving at all. RideSearch.com can probably help you save some money during the week, by car pooling, so you can use your car during the weekend for your own pleasure.

The concept is pretty simple, you register on their site to form your own profile. During the creation of your profile they will ask you for the following -

• Information used by RideSearch to notify you of potential matches
• Your desired Pick Up / Drop Off locations
• Your work schedule and how much flexibility you have
• Your carpooling preferences

Your information will be kept private till you decide to share it with whoever you are going to ride with.

Once you're done setting those up you can go ahead and set your Home Location your Work Location among many other preferences. You can even specify if you don't mind riding with a smoker or prefer non-smokers. If you're a woman and don't want to ride with unfamiliar men, then you can choose to ride with women only. {Not saying that sometimes women can't be weird too}

The site is very simple to use and doesn't charge for the service. Though you can donate if you like via PayPal. Their other monetization strategies are CPC ads and a store with their brand on various products. The service is mostly for U.S commuters, hopefully they'll open it up so that anyone from anywhere can use the service. It kind of limits the effect the site could have on the whole scope of things if it's just limited to the U.S.

The service was started recently, January 1st, 2008 to be precise. They are hoping that it will help in reducing the demand for gas and ultimately might reduce its price, lower the greenhouse effect and save you some money as well. It's a novel idea and judging by the cost of driving to work today, or just using your car, it might be well worth it to try it out.

As for me, I still haven't gotten my drivers license...yet. I remember when I used to have a 9-5 job I would mostly rely on public transport for work, mostly because I lived right below the monorail {I became numb to the noise of trains after a month or so}. But I do remember my co-workers always complaining about how much they needed to pay for gas, and parking, everyday just so they could get to work - this was in 2003. I just nodded, then I took the train home. Never really experienced rush hour traffic. Perhaps if more people car pooled there won't be any.

*Sponsored Presentation*

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