Illegal in the UK
The UK government is anti ride sharing, I know this because I built a web site for this very purpose a while ago, only to find out that it is illegal. If you have an accident with someone else in your car that paid for the ride, your insurance is void. The government DID think of this when it put the law in place.
Lets be honest, if its about saving money and reduction of CO2 its not in the governments interests as they charge 628% tax compounded on Petrol. In some places abroad a litre of petrol is from 2 to 3pence per litre to 18 pence per litre - Quatar, Saudi, Venezuala etc.
The British government could solve the congestion and CO2 situation overnight by giving tax incentives to companies for staff to home work. nearly 2/3rds of traffic in and out of London congesting motorways are commuters doing a job that could just as easily be done from home - and we do have that technology, just requires incentive and a restructuring of management task managment. The cost saving to companies alone would be huge as office space is very expensive in London especially, so is the cost of commuting - but no the government want their slice.
By ride sharing (car sharing is something else in USA ie car pooling) the government would lose out on tax as people would be more fuel efficient - so they passed the law not allowing people to give lifts for profit.
I used to do a ride share for 5 people in my 8 seater vehicle that ran on LPG for a journey of 150 miles per day, but they were not allowed to contribute legally. So only other method is to alternate cars, which is impracticle as that means backtracking on route to pick people up. Nope I think the government/energy companies have it sown up having convinced us its for our benefit as usual.
