Essential Skill #42: Share the Driving

"The average commuter burns 340 gallons a year, creating a 3.4-ton cloud of CO2," writes author David de Rothschild in The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook. "Ride with one extra passenger and you've cut that figure in half. Find one more and you've cut it by two-thirds."

So Essential Skill #42 is all-too obvious:

Share the driving.

Here in Phoenix, most of our freeways have HOV lanes just for carpoolers. If you don't qualify with at least two passengers in the car during specified times during the week, you're subject to getting pulled over. A couple of years ago, a woman argued she was justified, as she was pregnant. Apparently, it doesn't work that way. I'm pretty sure she had a fine to pay.

Getting to be in the carpool lane is such a treat here because so few people actually do it. If you're among them, you're zipping by at two or three times the speed of those unfortunate solo drivers in the other lanes.

Now I know that Phoenix is probably pretty average in terms of carpooling ratio, as 10 percent of Americans do so. That seems about right -- 1 vehicle in the carpool lane for every 10 in the others.

Though saving time getting where you're going is an important incentive for carpooling, it's certainly not the only one. "If one million people carpooled," writes de Rothshild, "1.7 million tons of CO2 would be eliminated per year."

And here's something we didn't know -- " 'Poolers can qualify for discounts of up to 20 percent on insurance ... and your employer may offer sweet incentives like free parking, shortened workdays, salary bonuses and ever cash rewards."

If you don't know anyone heading in your direction, check out CarpoolConnect.com to search for and find someone who is.