Are car sharing services the wave of the future?

No, I am not talking about carpooling, I am talking about car sharing. Companies like Zipcar and car rental agencies that are starting up their own lines of car sharing services are betting that people will start utilizing this service as gas prices continue to rise. The premise? It's kind of a best of both worlds of renting a car---you have a service in which you pay a membership fee to a service, sign up fee, and then a per-hour charge to use a car. If you want to use one, a lot of times you can just reserve one online, walk up to it at a local lot, swipe your membership card, and off you go!

The gas and insurance are taken care of by the company that owns the car. While some may scoff at this with the membership fee, for those that utilize it as it should be in theory, it could truly save hundreds of dollars on your gas prices/insurance costs. Zipcar has stated that their membership has exponentially exploded this year with the surge in oil prices.

The question is--will this last? I can see where savvy Americans will take advantage of this to some degree, but my opinion is that as a society--we are lazy, lazy, did I mention lazy? To continue to take the time to reserve a car, either walk/drive/take a bus to where another car is parked and then reverse it--we just won't do that long term. It may be a great thing now, but when the novelty wears off, I think this type of innovation goes the way of the do-do.....

Source: Newsweek

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Are car sharing services the wave of the future?

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