Cars & Transportation

Like eRideShare and NuRide, Ridester is a community of carpoolers and road trippers that can help get you from city to city while reducing the volume of traffic on the road. The service (free to join) features a way to both offer and find rides; drivers get paid for gas and riders pay for the lift. Here's how it works: drivers who are planning a trip log in, create a profile with travel preferences for gender, age, music favorites, smoking, etc., list the trip's route, date, estimated departure time and asking price; riders who want to get somewhere can then search by pick up location, drop off location, or by state, and can sign up on the site when a good match is found (if there are no matches, you can save your search and get notified automatically by email or text message when new trips are going your way). Drivers get an email or text message when a match is found, approve the match, get paid, and you're off; if the trip is canceled for any reason, Ridester handles the refund. At the end of the trip, both rider and driver have the opportunity to give positive, negative and neutral feedback about their companion. We like the idea of cutting back the number of cars on the road, and if you're headed over the river and through the woods for the holidays, don't want to ride alone, and want to get paid for carpooling, it might be a good way to go. ::Ridester via ::AutoblogGreen