Sep 2, 2008 4:30 pm US/Eastern
3 On Your Side: Ride Sharing Web Sites
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
About 135 million people
hit the road for their daily commute. But with gas prices still hovering around
four dollars a gallon, more people are traveling down a different highway to
cut costs. 3-On Your Side's Jim Donovan finds that people are now riding the
web in a new way.
Robert Gilliland racks up
130 miles a day driving back and forth to work. By the end of the week, both
his tank and his wallet are running on empty. "It was costing me
approximately $120 a week in gas," says Gilliland. Frustrated
by rising prices, Robert logged onto his computer in search of some "cyber
hitch hikers", people who were going his way and wanted to share expenses.
"The first rider I connected with was brian and that was through Craig's
list. My second rider, Mike, found him through erideshare.com," says
Gilliland.
E-ride-share, Go-loco and
Ride-search tell us that traffic to their sites has exploded in the past few
months. To find a ride using one of the sites, all you do is log on and create
an account. You can post your own request or search the listings for a match.
When you find a prospective partner, you simply click on the email link. Your
identity remains anonymous until you decide to exchange information. For
safety's sake, you may want to ask for references, get a copy of a photo I.D.
and meet at a public place before hitting the carpool lane.
But for Robert and his new
ridesharing buddy, Brian McKenzie, it's worked for them. According to McKenzie,
"The experience has been great. I found someone who lives really close to
me and we really hit it off well."
An increasing number of
employers are also turning to ridesharing sites to set up programs. For links
to the sites mentioned in this report, click on the links below.
RELATED LINKS:
www.erideshare.com
www.goloco.org
www.ridesearch.com
www.alternetways.com
www.nuride.com
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