New Era For Car Sharing?

Everyone but Geico agrees that there are too many cars in the world. Too many for the ozone layer. Too many for the roads. Too many for safety.

Or even for nice attitudes. Usually in my life I never utter the words "Way to go, douche bag," but I did yesterday. When driving, of course. It can turn Jekylls into Hydes.

Car sharing efforts have developed in the past decade to help people let go of extra cars. It's good, but it's not enough.

Such operations tend to be in larger cities. Ithaca is among the smallest cities to have one, largely due to participation of the colleges.

A new era in car sharing is, perhaps, about to begin. The idea is to let individuals share cars they own, on their own, as an alternative to car sharing businesses.

The main hurdle is insurance regulations. As things stand, there is no legal provision for sharing a car that is not registered for commercial use.

Legislators in California are trying to change that now.

There may be a leadership role for us here in Ithaca, too, as there has been in car sharing already.

Steve Burke
for Ithaca NY Blog