Blogger Atrios on Car-Sharing
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 12.27.05
A-list blogger Atrios (that's his "blogger name", his real name is Dr. Duncan B. Black) recently converted to car-sharing and wrote about his experience with PhillyCarShare: "After being carless for about 2 1/2 years the Atrios household signed up for Philly Car Share. For $15/month per household membership fee you get access to a bunch of cars parked in various spots around town. There's an online reservation system and once you've reserved you just go pick your car at the correct time. There's no paperwork or anything when you do so, you just unlock the car with the electronic gizmo they give you and drive away." Read on for more.
Cars are mostly hybrid vehicles which are interesting to drive. You pay $5.90 per hour for the time you reserved, and an additional 9 cents per mile. Gas, insurance, etc.. are included in that. Overnight and daily rates are cheaper.We've only used it a couple of times so far but we've been quite happy. It's much more convenient than normal car rental, and not really any more expensive (yes you can get bargain daily rentals frequently but if you don't own a car you don't have any insurance so you end up paying the car rental insurance rates on top of that). Useful for those occasional trips to the burbs or to anywhere a cab or public transit isn't a good option.
We're glad that he enjoys the car-sharing concept, and that he has exposed the idea to his vast readership.
::Atrios: Car Share Post, ::PhillyCarShare, ::Steve Case & Lee Iacocca Invest in Flexcar, ::GoGet Carshare, ::, ::Zipcar - A Product Becomes a Service
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I have used phillcarshare for about 2 months. I think the whole idea of it is brilliant. However, I have found that the customer service is awful. The representatives are not very helpful and quite rude at times. Over the past 2 months I have made numerous reservations and had a few situations where either the gas card did not work or the car that I reserved was not there. I received no compassion to my situations from the customer service reps. Names that I can remember are Lee? and Amy?.