With congestion continuing to rise on Britain’s roads a
number of solutions have been proposed, raising tax being the
main one. However, every day in the UK there are over 10 million
empty seats on the roads. Worse still, the vast majority of
these empty seats are during the rush hour, with average
occupancy for commuting only 1.2. The solution appears to be
simple – car sharing. This is further supported by recent
research which found that over 50% of commuters would car share
on their way to work if they could find someone suitable to
share with.
Car sharing has often been talked about but
only ever considered to be a small scale solution, unlikely to
have a significant effect on congestion levels. Again, the
evidence suggests otherwise. A 25% increase in car occupancy
levels would result in the number of commuting cars on the road
falling by 21%. Put another way, if everyone shared a journey to
work just once a week then the effect would be similar. With
over 50% of people happy to try car sharing out this could be an
attainable target.
So why has car sharing failed to take
off in a big way? Put simply, a lack of funding. Without the
money to raise awareness of car sharing and the ways to go about
finding someone to share with, the concept of car sharing is
always going to be doomed to being an insignificant solution.
Why hasn’t the funding been provided by the government,
particularly in light of the many reports that have come out
over recent years highlighting the potential of car sharing? One
can only speculate but to governments the idea of car sharing
isn’t so attractive. It generates no additional government
revenue and is in fact likely to reduce it, particularly with
the decline in fuel consumption. Compared with the prospect of
continuing to dramatically increase taxes on motorists, many of
whom have no choice but to use their cars, car sharing doesn’t
stand a chance.
The benefits of car sharing are also
often vastly underestimated. Car sharing does hugely reduce
petrol consumption for the individuals involved and if promoted
in a large way then congestion and pollution could be reduced
significantly. Other benefits include reduced parking problems
and the lower mileage done by each car means that they
depreciate less rapidly.
However, one statistics that is
overlooked is the impact of car sharing on road safety. The
number of speeding fines handed out in the UK in 2005 reached
the 2 million mark. With road safety being of such apparent
importance the statistic that the likelihood of having an
accident is reduced by 50% if there are two or more people in
the car should make the relevant authorities sit up and take
note. The way to increase road safety is to promote car sharing.
The added fact that it is also makes driving cheaper for the
individual, and reduces congestion and pollution, should
encourage people to take car sharing seriously.
Becoming
involved in car sharing is very straightforward. Liftshare.org
was established in 1997 and now has over 130,000 members one
million journeys registered. It’s also free to join, with a
simple registration form to complete before you can register a
journey and begin searching for travel companions. Whether
you’re traveling to work, a festival or a sporting event car
sharing is possible.
About the Author:
Charles Cridland founded
YourParkingSpace.co.uk, a site
where you can rent out your private
parking space, or find long
term
parking spaces for rent
