Carpool Etiquette

Most carpoolers agree that the good company of their fellow carpoolers is a benefit that they really enjoy and hadn’t anticipated. Agreement on a few simple points will ensure that your carpool stays a happy one. Although these points seem to be just common sense, there are a few specific rules that you may want to consider.

The Bottom Line – How Much $$
Settle on reimbursement costs in advance. If there is one permanent vehicle and driver it’s only fair to establish a fare based on fuel, maintenance and parking costs. Agree when fares will be collected and stick to it.

Don’t Be Late
Nothing can disrupt a happy carpool faster than chronically late riders. Establish a time schedule and pick-up points. Establish rules for latecomers and decide how long to wait (5 minutes is standard).

No Stopping – Anytime!
The golden rule of carpooling! Your commute together serves only one purpose – to travel to and from work or school. Save your trips to the grocery store for the weekend and pick-up your dry cleaning on your lunch break.

The Back Up Plan…..
This is particularly important if your carpool has more than one driver. Ensure everyone has a copy of home, work or cell phone numbers and agree in advance what will happen in the event of illness or mechanical problems – it is best to expect the unexpected. An automobile association membership can be a great investment for those rare occasions when the keys are locked in the car or a jump-start is needed.

Insurance – Make Sure You’re Covered
To adequately protect yourself, liability insurance of at least $1,000,000 is recommended as well as underinsured motorist protection. These are a good investment and cost only a few dollars more each year. We also recommend that you notify your insurance provider of your intent to carry passengers.

Vehicle Maintenance
A poorly maintained car can consume between 15 and 50 percent more fuel than one that is properly maintained. A well maintained vehicle will ensure a safe, reliable, comfortable ride that’s better for the environment.

The Little Things…..
Sometimes it is the little things that make a big difference. Consider the close proximity of your carpool partners before applying perfume or cologne in the morning, many people are highly sensitive to certain smells and can become extremely uncomfortable.

Use common sense when making seating arrangements - big people in the front, smaller people in the back. Decide on radio use, smoking policies and other concerns before you start carpooling.

Three Steps to the Paperless Office

1. Think Before You Ink. The change has to start here. We all have to change how we look at paper. Before you print out anything, ask yourself if it is absolutely necessary.

If you have a digital copy of that e-mail, why do you need a printed version? The green blog TreeHugger.com tried to build an eco-meme by asking people to add this line to their e-mail signatures: "Eco-Tip: Printing e-mails is usually a waste." Sure, it is a little preachy, but sometimes we need preachers to show us the way.

I have complained in the past that people send too much e-mail, but printing them out is downright sinful.

2. Preview Your Documents. The average employee prints six totally useless pages per day. All you have to do is walk over to the network printer in your office to see examples of them. I did just that and found a tray filled with blank pages, misplaced spreadsheet fields, and random HTML fields from printed Web pages.

The average employee prints 1,410 of these wasted pages per year. And this problem is easy to fix: Just preview it first. The easiest way to do this is to use the print preview feature in whatever software you are using to print.

GreenPrint is a software package that automates the process. You can download a free version of GreenPrint from www.printgreener.com; an ad-free version is available for $35. GreenPrint Technologies claims that the average user of the package will save about $90 a year in paper and ink costs. This is a great feature that should become the default in both personal and office printers.

Can you imagine the savings if this is rolled out across an enterprise or small business? That is money-saving Green IT.

3. Print to PDF. It took a while, but PDF truly is a universal portable document format. And just attaching a Word doc to an e-mail is pretty universal too (although I have it on very good authority that there are still those among us stuck using Word 2002 and unable to natively read the latest Office formats). Send digital files whenever you can.

There are more ways to cut back, of course, including printing on both sides of pages, electronic invoicing, and using multifunction devices to scan rather than copy, but those three steps alone could put a huge dent in paper waste.

These changes won't take place overnight, but we have to look at those stacks of unused, underused, or never reused paper as the inexcusable waste that they are. Even here at PC Magazine, we have our challenges. When I wanted to see the first draft of the PC Magazine CleanTech Approved logo, one of my staffers printed out a color copy for me showing the 2 by 2 inch logo in the middle of a bright white page. All I needed was a JPEG. The logo was bright green—and yet so not.

Info. from: http://www.pcmag.com