Sharing is Nice

Tim and I are both officially Zipsters. I’m glad being hip is not a requirement, apparently all we need is a membership card to earn the title. I’ve been a Zipster for a few years and Tim recently joined when we  sold our final car last month. (can you believe we used to have four cars?) Since we started using it more, we have managed to slip  “zip” into our vernacular: Zip skiing, Zip Brompton, Zip trip, the Zip possibilities are annoyingly endless.

Are we officially car free? For now.  For how long, we don’t know. Will we get another car? Anne says, “Yes” and Tim says, “Maybe”. Only time will tell.

We do know that car sharing is as simple as advertised and fits nicely with our other transportation options (bikes, buses, walking). We’ve also found another use for our Bromptons: the perfect Zip-pickup bikes. We ride to the car, fold em up and pop them in the trunk and go. Ziptastic.

Car sharing has recently gained popularity in the US but according to Wikipedia, it’s been around since the late 40’s:

The first reference to carsharing in print identifies the Selbstfahrergenossenschaft carshare program in a housing cooperative that got underway in Zürich in 1948,

I can’t help but wonder if more people will join the sharing trend. Since we sold our car, we’ve received an astounding number of car-lending offers: from friends to neighbors to family members; many people have extra cars they don’t drive very much and are more than willing to lend.

Hopefully the Insurance companies will catch on and make it easier to share personal vehicles. CA is leading the way with (recently passed) AB 1871 that enables personal car sharing. In it’s wake, a number of new businesses are popping up. Perhaps peer-to-peer car sharing will take off nationwide?

Until then, we’ll continue to use Zipcar. For longer trips when the bike doesn’t make sense. And for Zip-skiing adventures (our favorite Suburu Impreza comes equipped with AWD, a ski rack, chains, a NW Forest Pass AND Sno Park permit in addition to the typical free gas and insurance).

What’s not to like about that?

– Anne