slugging - a carpool/hitchhike combo

This was going to be a reply to the hitchhiking thread, then I thought a new thread might be warranted.

Have you heard of slugging?

It's an uber-casual form of commuter carpooling. I saw a video the other night, and due to gas prices and congestion in the DC area, folks just line up to jump in a car so that driver can use the carpool lane. Pretty wild. 

I wonder if it will/has spread to other areas.

Jocelyn:

Hi; just happened to catch your post about slugging. I'm actually working with Zebigo.com, a company based in Seattle that is based on the slugging method of carpooling and we launched last month. People are using for commuting, going to events, and one-way trips. Check us out at http://zebigo.com and let me know your thoughts...we are just getting going, but would love your feedback on ideas on how to make it better!

Charlie

==
Charles McEnerney
Director of Marketing + Communications
Zebigo.com
charlie@zebigo.com

As gas prices continue to rise, interest in practices like slugging may too.

I love this idea, brings hitchhiking back into a safer framework and modernizes it.

Never hitchhiked but once (emergency), never picked up a hitchhiker but once, well substantiated hunch that became a lasting friendship and business relationship,

The question of safety was always uppermost in my mind.

I like the idea of slugging, though there’s probably a name that would appeal to me more.

My daughter lives in Seattle area, I want to find out if there’s a modern remnant of the fledgling organization mentioned above.

Barbara Kingsolver’s book: Unsheltered describes a similar system in Cuba which I have believed is probably true in concept if not in detail.  “El Amarillo” monitors the destinations and reasons for travel amongst the potential passengers gathered at an established location.  As cars stop the Amarillo assigns the potential travelers to vehicles.  It sounds like a fabulous system for utilization of limited precious resources, and a good many lasting relationships are formed.

El Amarillo wears bright yellow, and is a government employee.

I have lived in remote towns in the Colorado mountains where the town runs a weekly bus for the townspeople, to the nearby “city” and visitors if there’s room.  It makes a lot of sense for communities with aging citizens, or youthful ones.

Before I signed on to “Zebigo” or similar, I would need my safety and vulnerability concerns addressed.

If you haven’t read “Unsheltered”, I highly recommend it.

No car-pool lanes in the UK that I know of.
We have websites where you can offer/request lifts, eg https://liftshare.com/uk . Works for one-offs and regular journeys.
Otherwise, I'm happy to offer lifts, just as I accepted them in my youth. And I have tried hitching since, when I was trying to get to a medical appointment and the buses had been re-routed - ended up calling a friend.
The latest people I picked up were a couple of French, who'd hoped for a ferry on a Sunday. They now needed to use the much longer road route.

It’s been around forever.  I was a “slug” in DC and rode to work free everyday, which helped the car owner take the high occupancy vehicle lane and cut an hour from the drive!