介绍:
33-year old He Yingmin, who works in Beijing as a film-maker, comes from a small county in Linyi city, east China's Shandong province.
Every year he would go back to his hometown, and his car-pooling experience dated back to one decade ago when he, along with many others, first boarded a small van of a fellow villager of his.
"I feel that it's good. All my travel companions are my acquaintances too. Even though we live in Beijing, each of us have our own business and we could rarely find the time to meet each other. Car-pooling for the sake of returning to our hometown is a good chance for us to communicate. We played jokes with each other along the trip and our journey was filled with joy and laughter."
Since he purchased his own car in 2010, He Yingmin has become a driver in the 9-hour long car-pooling journey. Turning from a passenger to a driver, he feels more of a sense of responsibility than happiness.
"I feel heaviness in my shoulders when I become the driver to take my fellow villagers back home together. During a Spring Festival trip back home, we happened to encounter a traffic accident and I estimated that there were life losses in that. I was somewhat scared then."
Moreover, car pooling could also be risky, particularly when the travel companions are strangers who met on the Internet.
Some social and law experts, therefore, advise that travel companions show each other their ID cards and inform their respective workplaces.
Meanwhile, relevant laws and regulations should be improved to avoid disputes arising from the money involved in carpooling.
Besides, according to lawyer Zhu Youyou, the situation could become complicated if a traffic accident took place during the trip.
"Generally speaking, privately-owned cars would purchase insurance in terms of a non-profit vehicle. If a traffic accident took place during the car pooling and the insurance company found out that the car owner had actually charged other passengers for car-pooling, the company could refuse to pay any compensation."
Recently the Beijing transport authorities have legalized car pooling, acknowledging the contribution of carpooling in helping to ease the capital's traffic congestion and air pollution.
But they also promised to issue more regulations on this practice and advised a pre-signed agreement to better protect the rights and interests of people who participate in carpooling.
