Casual Car Pool

There are two rules of casual carpool:
1. Don’t speak unless spoken to.
2. You may only play NPR.
Both of these rules have been broken during my time as a casual carpool rider, but nonetheless, it has been an incredible experience and made my mornings extremely efficient and easy. I’ve never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a ride, and my drivers have always been polite and safe. Different pick up spots seem to have different customs-​for instance, at Lafayette, your ride is free, but at Lakeshore, it’s courteous to pay $ 1 to help pay the toll.
Casual carpool is one of my favorite Bay Area institutions-​truly a shining example of the acceptance and camaraderie that the bay embodies.
Still holding out hope for a Tesla one of these days.

Unilocal is really an incredible ratings website if it has a listing for this. As a partaker of this «service» when I worked in The City, I’ll throw my review in to the hat too. Besides, I’m trying to write 100 reviews in 2013 :-)
First: where. In CoCo, there are two spots I know of, the Lafayette BART parking lot and the side of the Orinda theater (my preferred spot). I don’t know about pickup spots in SF to ride home. In Marin, you can pick up a ride at the Park-​n-​Ride in Mill Valley.
Second: economics. It saves money (BART ticket or bridge toll/​gas) and time (a few minutes if you’re BARTing, half an hour if you’re driving). Just get three perfect strangers into a car and off you go, afflicted with carpool tunnel syndrome.
Three: riders. You probably won’t meet your special someone in casual carpool; you probably won’t even say anything besides «hi» or «Front and Pine». Or maybe you will. One salesperson exchanged business cards to get contacts for her business. It can turn into a good social event to wake you up better than coffee does.
My memorable experiences:
(1) The poor man with a small pickup who just couldn’t get anyone to ride with him.
(2) The lady driving a convertible with the top down. As we were getting onto 24, she started to put the top up, and the other passenger and I said «No, leave it down!» It was perfect weather on the Bay Bridge, therefore my most memorable commute ever.
(3) I had to drive into The City for a few months, so I was the driver this time. 98.6% of the time, drivers play KCBS (traffic report), but I played either Phil Keaggy or Randy Stonehill. Once, the lady riding shotgun commented positively on Stonehill’s music. We talked for a while, turns out she was a regular at St. Patrick’s Church. We didn’t keep in touch, but that was a good ride for both of us.
It won’t work for many people, and others get skittish about riding with strangers, but it’s worth a try if you’re adventurous.

So far I’ve picked up passengers twice for carpooling, both times each passenger contributed a dollar, and even though it took me about 5 min to get back on the freeway after dropping them at financial district, I still saved a lot of commute time and money. Carpooling rocks!
I must say that one of the passengers’ perfume caused my allergies to act out: /​, as a courtesy passengers should avoid wearing perfume prior to getting a ride, in return I’ll make sure to have a clean and clutter free car.
btw anyone knows how late in the mornings are passengers waiting to carpool at the Grand Ave-​Lakeshore spot? is it 9:30?

Since they raised the rate of blowing thru fast trac tickets from $ 7 to $ 70 (or whatever actual ridiculous price it is this year) I had to find a new way to over sleep and still blow thru the toll plaza at light speed. So I read up about it on Unilocal,googled bus routes and I was ready.
Trip #1: I picked up a mother and her teenage daughter who fought the entire way to SF. Both slammed the door on exiting.
Trip #2: I picked up 3 young latin men. We drove to Sf in silence. The look on their face when I stopped to let them out was pure confusion. Turns out they were looking for work. oops.
Trip #3: I picked up two business men who tried to impress me with stories about themselves, and still asked me out after I told them I was getting married soon.
I think I like taking BART a little more, but if you must drive it’s worth the annoyance to save $ 5 and 20 minutes.

I’ve gotten into casual car pools and I’ve picked up casual car poolers. I’ve never had a problem in either case, nor have I heard of any problems despite the potential for problems.
To get a ride, you just need to get in line at a trans-​bay bus stop and hope someone picks you up. In some areas of town, they’re not into casual car pooling, so you might have to get on the bus and actually pay for a ride. But in some other areas of town, riders know that drivers will come to that bus stop and it’ll be rare to not get a ride. In fact, some bus stops are so popular for car pools that they’ll move the stop, but car poolers continue to wait in the old location anyway. And they’ll get picked up.
To get riders, you gotta find bus stops where they are used to car pools, or have lots of riders waiting. If they don’t have a lot of riders, you can end up chasing or being chased by buses while you go from bus stop to bus stop looking for riders. Sometimes, riders aren’t used to casual car pools, so they’ll turn you down when you offer a ride. It feels like you just got turned down on a date.
People generally don’t talk during the ride, and the music or talk radio should be turned down or off. Most drop off’s are at the Transbay Terminal or the block before. I usually offer to drop anyone off along the way to my parking garage downtown.
Two riders per car, unless there’s a real long line of riders waiting for a car pool.
Don’t forget your stuff when you leave. One gal chased me for two blocks because she forgot her umbrella in my back seat.
It’s free. One gal brought her mother along and she left a couple of bucks on the back seat for me. I gave it back to her daughter who started laughing when she realized what her mom did.
The worse thing I ever did as a driver was to forget that I had riders and i got off the car pool lane and ended up stuck in traffic on the Grand Ave. on ramp. Riders, don’t let your driver do anything as stupid as that!
Once I got a ride in a two seat Chrysler TC and stupidly agreed to ride in the back jump seat instead of the front passenger seat. I agreed to ride in this car because I wanted to check out the car. I guess the guys in the front didn’t realize that you only need two if you have a two-​seater.
Now, if we can only figure out how to car pool back in the evening …

I’ve been doing this on and off but more frequently lately — since I can have 15 more minutes of sleep in the morning. For me, I’ve played both rider and driver. I enjoy being the rider, I always get into some kind of political debate or other type of conversation. I’ve driven only a few times — usually when I’m going to be in the City really late for a concert after school. You’ll never know what car you’ll have — but I usually end up in a garden variety Accord/​Camry/​Civic with the occasional Benz.
I’ll still do this after July 1^st as a driver or rider, I’ll gladly pay the $ 1 on request. But I won’t charge to cross the bridge if you’re a commuter or snowboarder.

It’s always an adventure. You never know if you’re going to get a nice car or a hoopty. When I was in school this saved me a LOT of money on bart fares!

Seriously, I had to take one star away today because of the most annoying Berkeley rider ever. I’m driving about 40 mph, or even less, and the guy (sitting in the back seat) says: «Are you a rush to get somewhere?» Me: «I’m trying to get to work.» Guy in passenger seat says, «Yeah, me too. In a rush too.» Then he says something about how «it’s public transportation,» and that I needed to «slow down,» etc. I ignored him and he said, «comments are allowed because it is public transportation.» I wanted to drop his fat ass off right then and there, far away from the casual carpool (Far away from anything, so he could find his own ride to work.). It was some bullshit that I just can’t tolerate first thing in the morning. First, I was driving more slowly than my grandmother. Secondly, he needed to stop being a «back seat driver,» so to speak. Thirdly, casual carpool is not really «public transportation,» in my view. It’s private parties choosing to engage in an arrangement and, at any given time, one party could choose not to engage any further in that arrangement. I told my husband about this and he told me I needed to drop his ass off right then and there. I certainly will do this the next time some ungrateful scum says something about how I needed to drive more slowly. With the traffic now almost unnoticeable b/​c of horrible economy and layoffs, I am happy paying my $ 4 to get to work on account of such annoying riders! I am trying to reduce my carbon footprint by taking 2 others to work with me, but sometimes, the environment will have to take a back seat.

I’ve been casual carpooling as a rider for 4 months, and I am saving about $ 70 a month on commuting costs. I do casual carpool at the Valero on Grand. Love the fact that it is just 4 blocks from home. Downside is that there is NO WAY to predict whether I’ll be waiting in a line of 8 people, or taking my pick from a line of 8 cars. If you haven’t tried casual carpool, DO IT. I was always worried that creepy rapists would be driving, but it’s totally not like that. Everyone has been nice and a good driver. I’ve been in a couple dirty cars, but that’s about as bad as it gets.
Another bonus: If you get antsy about waiting in line for a car, the NL transbay bus stop is right on the corner.

The coolest thing about this is this:
If you aren’t a control freak, and you need a ride, you usually ride with control freaks who have to drive. And these control freaks are completely self absorbed. And they typically have nice cars because they are worried about their image. So… to be selfish and selfishly go through the carpool lane, they will pick up others in the nice car and get to cruise with them.
If you are this mellow person, never think of this: The control freak is totally using you.
If you can get past that, you ride in a plush, fly car wherever you need to go. That is nice. The guy might be a penis, might be cool… but what a great service!

if you don’t know, now you know.
Casual carpool is awesome — like taking candy from strangers, except you climb directly into their cars (and if you’re me, you fall asleep in the backseat while they drive you who-​knows-​where enroute to the Bay Bridge) and skip the whole lured-​in-​to-​the-​van-​by-​the-​candy step. I’ve never trusted complete and utter strangers so much in my life! Bonus points to folks who crank up the NPR. Boo to the people with those annoying beeping police car alert/​scanners, and people who crank up the AM news talk radio.
i’ve had the chance to ride in some snazzy sports cars, Mini-​coopers, rapist vans, a Pinto and many more vehicles, all of which beat the pants off of standing on BART as your ears pop in the tunnel. Too bad I can’t catch a ride home!
TIP: If you’re a lady, you can totally pass up rides with dudes and opt for ladies’ only cars. In fact, a lot of female drivers will only pick up chicks, so there are a lot of safety options.

My girlfriend and I discovered this a couple of weeks ago and we’ve saved over $ 100 a week using this amazing service.
We leave from Hercules and there are always cars waiting to take us over. We’ve even re-​connected with a couple of people we knew in high school. We love the «unwritten rules» they have posted on their site.
I won’t say that there haven’t been bad experiences as well (the woman who kept falling asleep every 2 seconds — literally) but the pro’s far outweigh any cons I’m having trouble thinking of.
It’s fun to drive through the carpool lane over the toll entrance and smile at the hundreds of red lights we see, even in the FasTrak lane, and know that we are going to get into the city at least twenty minutes before all of them. Plus, there are no metering lights for the carpool lane.
I love working in the city!

Mom said never take rides from strangers so I was scared of the worst when I first started the casual car pool.
Day one I slowly drove past the line of waiting carpoolers twice before quickly speeding off because I had decided that the men were definitely rapists and I should try again another day.
Day two I decided to be a rider. I have hitchhiked before and have this little routine in my head about pretending I’m down to be raped and then jumping out of the car when it slows enough, keeping my head and arms tucked as to minimize damage. I was prepared, just in case. There was another girl in line before me when a man in a car pulled up. It was risky, but I figured he really couldn’t rape us both at the same time.
Day four hundred and sixty-​eight and still no rape.
The moral of this story is: Mom doesn’t know what she is talking about. Next I’ll be debunking the over-​hyped running with scissors myth.
Possible alternate moral of this story: I’m just not rape material.

Nothing annoys me more than people who think they are coolerthanthou urban liberals but are squeamish about casual carpool. WTF people? This is a perfect example of the grassroots movement.
I love the casual carpool, with all its organically developed but unwritten rules and etiquette’s and the diversity of drivers and passengers who may or may not choose to adhere to them.
Casual carpool offers the efficiency of a booty call, usually without the booty. You just show up, get what you need and you get out. It’s free, you don’t have a say a word during if you don’t want to and you there’s never any pressure to schedule a future «call». Sometimes you get some crazy who wants to bond about the weather but you can just cut them off and never see that person again.
Despite the rules, casual carpool is like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re going to get.
I have been carpooling on and off for 15 years with lots of stories but no real incident. I have met one of my friends carpooling; I have carpooled with friends by sheer coincidence; I have only read about carpool romances and marriages but do know that they’re out there; I have been in a car that broke down on the bay bridge where I had to wait with the driver and get a ride into the city on a tow truck. I have been annoyed as hell at some drivers for not bothering to clean up the area that is intended for the passengers or keeping the car too cold or too hot or listening to music that is so wrong for so early in the morning. I even had one driver yelling as I was getting in her car — «this is a no fragrance car!» I don’t wear perfume but I also passed on her car — I don’t like militants like that.
It’s all just par for the course.
A funny story: I was still rather new to casual carpool and didn’t know about alternate routes that some drivers take. Got into one of those commercial vans without windows in the back, sat on the single seat tucked way in the back. There were two guys in the front wearing mechanics jumpsuits. I see a pair of leather gloves sitting on the center console. I was already freaked out but when they took an exit in West Oakland’s industrial district, I nearly peed my pants. I was getting ready to open the rear door to «tuck and roll» when the van got back on the freeway towards the Bay Bridge. I arrived safely in downtown SF and they bid me good day as I bolted through the door.
I still love casual carpool. It’s all good.

A great place to get on your cell phone and pass gas. The general public is far more personal when you are using their car kleenex or passing judgement on their choice of radio, use of turn signals and desire to get across the bridge for free.

I did this once.
Mother was right — don’t talk to strangers,
and certainly don’t get in a car with those mofos before 8 am.
I should have known better — I was raised right —
but I hadn’t had my coffee yet.

I took casual carpool for about 2 weeks while I was staying with a friend in Oakland. I loved walking up in the mornings wondering what kind of ride I would get to go to work in. You get some cool people driving you and sometimes you get some crazy drivers but I enjoyed every drive.

I am a big fan of casual carpooling. Of course it’s a funny culture — typically no talking except for the polite «hello» or «good morning» and «thank you» — but it works!
That’s why I was really bummed to hear about the recent wack incident:
Hey — whoever you are — don’t ruin casual carpooling for the rest of us!!!

Have to second my fellow Unilocalers and say the Carpool rocks. It’s a great example of how a grassroots movement (and yeah, I consider it that) can take off. I heard when it first started BART was all mad, but they couldn’t stop it! Now
lists it as a public transit option. Awesome.
So, I’ve never had any weird experiences. Once, a chatty driver asking me about my holiday plans (but I think she was just being friendly), then another guy who played opera (no big, but then he sang along, too). I’ve even gotten into two-​seaters with men. Finally, I rode in a two seater w/​a woman driver from L.A. who was actually kind of freaked out about picking any carpoolers up, and then she and i had a great conversation about life, school, work, and an episode of «Let’s Make A Deal.» We laughed and felt pretty good about meeting each other, and about people in general (something commuting is NOT particularly famous for).
Yeah, Casual Carpool!

The Casual Car Pool rocks (and rolls… sorry, I couldn’t resist). It truly is one of the best transportation options from the East Bay to SF on weekday mornings. Why not award it a full 5 stars then? Well, there is a certain etiquette to this car pool situation that not everyone follows– most people do but not everyone. Apparently the model car pool driver listens to NPR at a moderate to low volume while conversing very little with the passengers except to say «good morning» and «you’re welcome» or «have a nice day» upon dropping their passengers off. Passengers are also expected to keep to themselves except to greet and thank the driver. Occasional references to the weather are also acceptable. An especially nice driver will let you know where they’re headed and offer to drop you off closer to your workplace if it’s on their way.
Here is what you DO NOT do:
Me (after a friendly driver appeared to be heading in the direction of my office): Where are you headed?
40-​something, male driver: Whoa, that’s kind of a personal question. I’m a married man, but there are a few motels along the way. Hahaha.
Me (shifting nervously in the front seat): Heh.
Passenger in back: Just let me out at the corner.
Sheesh, jackass, why did you have to go and ruin a perfectly pleasant car pool experience? (That’s what I should have said.)