Car pooling, ever heard about it?

Car pooling-the magic words at times of high fuels price and global warming?

People all over the world have been urged to pool their resources together to achieve maximum returns for their investments and also to save time and energy in the case of transportation. The metro transits and the aviation industry are the two most common examples of "pooling" and thus many developing countries including Malaysia are all eagle to invest heavily for the metro transits while the major airliners are demanding that the aircraft makers like Boeing and the Air Bus to come up with bigger and more efficient jumbo jets to cater for the "pooling" philosophy. But it seems that only the giant corporations and the government are taking the "pooling" seriously.

But how about car pooling in our everyday lives such as car pooling to go to work and sending kids to school? If we look around us, we can see that the idea of car pooling is really not a welcoming method for most of us. We see traffic been jammed up everyday around schools and cities and town centres because car pooling is not been recognised as an attractive way to travel. Although the people complaint about high fuels price, to them the inconvenience of car pooling is simply too much for them to bear and thus they seldom consider the car pooling as the alternative to save fuels and time and let alone the issues of Global Warming.

The governments had not done enough to promote car pooling as well. How much money and resources have been allocated to sell the idea,such as the number of awareness campaigns been spearheaded by the governments? The government must take the central roles in bringing awareness to the general public as to the advantages of car pooling from the economic view points to the environmental issues and of course to the issues about traffic jam that brings about wastage of fuels and time for everyone.

The ministry of transportation, the ministry of environment and the ministry of finance together with other NGOs should really look into the matter seriously. It should start with the government employees (almost a million of them) before the general public would rise to the challenge and make car pooling a way of life.

p/s I was deeply troubled by the ways the parents park their cars around the schools without due regards to the law and the convenient of other road users.These parents are setting bad example for their kids to follow and no wonder they become the "road bully" when they grow up!