Car sharing up and running

I was pleased to read in Emirates Today that a car sharing website has been launched so that people who want to car pool can easily contact each other. I've had a quick look at it and at first glance it seems to be well set up.

The other pleasing thing was that previous 'official' announcements that car pooling was illegal seem to have been incorrect.

The RTA say that car pooling for profit is illegal - illegal taxis is the thing the authorities are worried about.

However, car pooling and sharing the petrol costs are not illegal and that really is what car pooling is all about. In fact, poolers don't even need to do that - for example, I'm aware overseas of commuters who simply use one person's car one week, another person's the next.

One of the problems in most cities is the number of cars with just one person in them. Simple arithmatic says that if there was car pooling and each car had four people, traffic would decrease by 75%.

Anything that will help relieve the congestion on our roads, the pollution, the frustration, the lost productivity, can only be a good thing.

The website is www.carshareme.com.

You can read the story, which Emirates Today devoted its front page to, here.