I believe in driving cars.  Honestly, I get a ride to school almost daily.  Because of the distances that separate people from their destinations, cars are essential in our modern, transportation centered world.  Its preposterous to demand that we stop driving cars because they have become a commodity in our lives, not just a luxury.  However, I have to draw a line at a certain point.

As much as I think that you driving alone, to school, in your big offroad truck is on the brink of awesomeness, it is totally unnecessary, wasteful, obnoxious, and quite frankly unintelligent.  I ride to school with seven people in a CVR, barely squeezing in so we can save gas on the way to school, but it seems that other people think that driving to school alone in their cars, whether they are big or small, is a better option.  I know that some people do not live inside of Piedmont and that driving alone is inevitable, but there are definetly students who have the potential to carpool but choose not to.  That is what bugs me.

We live in a small town, where practically every student lives right next to a classmate, so why not carpool? Offer a ride to others who also drive to school and switch off accordingly.

The main argument I hear against this is that because we are only one small town, in one state, in one country, on one continent, on Earth, that it will not matter; but I am here to say that is so utterly false.  This idea that because our menial tasks are next to useless, is so deeply ingrained in our minds that practically everyone thinks that. Therefore nobody cares to do anything. People do care about the environment, as seen in one of our class service learning projects, but people are so unwilling to take action behind their beliefs.  If people were willing to back up their beliefs, I truly believe that a change would come into effect.

According to Statistic Brain, carpooling saves an average of 85 million gallons of gas yearly, which totals up to about 1.1 billion dollars a year.  Additionally, carpooling will also save you 56,000 miles of traffic, and reduce the amount of money spent on gas by about one half the amount if you drove alone.  If these facts don’t make you second guess avoiding carpool, I don’t know what will.

Nevertheless, I am sure that there are some of you who read this and say, “Man this kid is rambling on about some environment bogus.  He’s probably a hippie.”  So for you who do not believe as strongly as I do in saving the environment, think of all parking spaces available if people carpooled.  Have you ever driven to school only to find the parking lot full?

There are so many downsides to driving alone to your destination as well.  So instead of being antisocial, too cool for a friend in the passengers seat, and too obsessed with how awesome you look when you’re driving your huge truck alone, think about how totally radical you would look when carpooling instead.