Carpooling is Good For Your Health and Finances, and the Environment

Carpooling is a practice with many distinct advantages. If you’re considering starting a carpool to your place of work, then you might already have been persuaded by a few of them. The benefits of carpooling are immense.

What is Carpooling?

Car pooling, or car sharing, is a way of sharing a journey with others. Typically, carpooling is used for a regular journey such as the commute to work, but may also be used for other occasions such as attending large events such as major sporting events or music festivals.

If you are interested in sharing your car, or would like the opportunity to be a passenger, but don’t know who might be travelling in the same direction, whether that’s for a regular or one-off event, platforms such as Liftshare can make that match for you.

Importantly, carpooling is not about making a profit from car sharing. Whilst it is okay to charge passengers, it should only be sufficient to cover running costs and depreciation unless you are using a registered scheme.

Perhaps you are already thinking how you could use carpooling. So, let’s enhance that enthusiasm by considering each of the major benefits of carpooling.

Health Advantages of Carpooling

For most people, the drive to work is during the rush hour. Even those who generally like driving can find the work communte considerably more stressful than driving at other times of the day: road works causing delays, congestion, the noise, impatient drivers.

By carpooling, you can limit the stress associated with commuting by taking turns with other drivers.

Carpooling naturally limits the number of cars on the road which is good from both an environmental and health perspective. Carbon-fuelled engine fumes contain carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas, which can cause asthma, other severe lung conditions, and even death. In December 2020, a coroner Philip Barlow ruled that air pollution from vehicle emissions was a “material contribution” to nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s death.

Did you know that almost every home in the UK is affected by air pollution?

Environmental Impact Reduction

Since carpooling drives down road traffic, it also tends to limit various kinds of air pollution. The air immediately around the roads will end up cleaner, and your journey’s contribution to climate change will be lessened.

A recent government report indicated that driving up car occupancy could slash annual carbon emissions by around the amount produced by all the buses in the country in a given year.

Whatever your precise contribution to the problem of climate change, it’s undeniable that a single car with five people in it will emit less, and cause significantly less congestion, than five different cars containing one person each.

Financial Savings for Commuters

Carpooling also tends to reduce the cost of motoring. Since you’re sharing a ride with other people, you’re also splitting the cost of things like fuel and parking fees. Since you’ll end up driving your car less, you might also find that the cost of maintenance is much lower, too.

There are also implications for your insurance costs and that can also be impacted by annual mileage. Additionally, members of the same household can acquire multi-car insurance, which can reduce costs still further.

Of course, your savings might be affected by the extra distance you have to travel to pick up your fellow passengers. Select a route carefully, and make sure that you use a reputable navigation app, like Waze, to limit your commute time – and your costs.

Community and Social Benefits

Through a good carpool, you’ll get a daily social interaction with a trusted person, or set of people, outside of a work context. The mental health advantages here can be considerable – but they’re often difficult to quantify.

You might get a sense of community with the group you’re sharing a trip with, which can make a difference to your social health. It might be that, through your carpool, you end up getting invited to other social events involving the same people.

Summary

If the multiple benefits of carpooling sound worth exploring further, why not chat with friends and colleagues, or explore lift sharing platforms. It makes sense for you, your purse, and the environment!