Sharing in the Experience: A Look at Carpooling

Most Americans don’t like to share.  It’s a fact.  That’s why most of us take great pride in purchasing "our first car," because we know that it is ours alone and that we bought it with only ourselves in mind.  Now, of course, this isn’t always the case.  There are plenty of families out there that share cars or purchase vehicles together.  There are also plenty of families who, purposely, only own one vehicle.  Carpooling is an off-shoot of this grandiose idea of "sharing."  Unfortunately, for many people, the idea of carpooling has drawn negative attention to itself.  This negative meaning is most often associated with the fact that it forces you to "share" your space with someone else when you’d typically prefer to be left alone.  For instance, if you have your own vehicle, you can leave whenever you want, listen to your music blasting and catch up on the latest gossip with friends.  If we take a look at carpooling again, however, usually we’ll find that it’s not so bad.  After all, it saves you a ton of money that you would’ve spent in gas, it still gets you where you need to go, you can meet people, and (usually) you won’t have to drive!