How many additional hours per month would you have to work to make an extra $588? What would you give to get back 20 hours a month of your life to spend with those you love the most? An extra hour or two a day with your children playing catch, helping out with homework, or reading a bedtime story? Priceless.
Well that’s exactly what I’m getting by just sharing a ride to work. In the past year, between savings in fuel, parking, taxes, tolls and most importantly, time, my quality of life has improved tenfold. But I’m not just saving time and money. I’m saving my neighborhood, community and the planet at large.
I was astonished to read an article by environmental writer Mrunal Belvalkar, stating that the average American spends over 430 hours driving every year, which equals about 18 days. In one year, a single passenger car emits around 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, 600 pounds of carbon monoxide and consumes around 550 gallons of gasoline. Shocking, right?
Imagine the possibility of reducing the overall numbers of cars on the roads, the carbon emissions and general gasoline consumption by half. Well, it’s not as difficult as you might think. All you have to do is embrace and actively participate in the fastest growing economy in the world – the shared economy. By sharing our commutes, we each take on the environmental responsibility of reducing our carbon footprint.
This can all be achieved by just moving to your left. By simply moving from the highly congested SOV lane to a HOV lane.
Mrunal Belvalkar suggests that if every passenger car in the US “shared a ride” and carried just one additional commuter for a single day, the US could save over 30 million gallons of gasoline in a single day! Just one additional commuter, and just one day. She deducts that in a week, the US could save more than 210 million gallons of fuel!
I think it’s time to embrace change and start the revolution. In the words of the inspirational author, Alan Cohen:
“It takes courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.”