You might have heard about ridesharing, but what exactly is it? What are the benefits? And how can you join in a rideshare program? The key to understanding ridesharing is learning about the program itself and realizing that there is no reason to not be open to the idea.

Ridesharing has been around since the 1940s when people had to carpool in order to ration gasoline to send to the troops fighting the war overseas, but when rationing ended, the numbers of people carpooling fell.

Many people avoid rideshare programs because they stubbornly refuse to give up driving their own cars alone. Millions of solo drivers hit the roads every day adding to the traffic congestion in the nation. All of these cars on the road also increase the levels of carbon dioxide put into the Earth's atmosphere. Such a rise in this greenhouse gas increases the already rampant pace of global warming.

These drivers fail to realize that with these millions of automobiles requiring fuel, the price for gas increases. If there were fewer cars at the gasoline pumps, the prices would go down and there would be less traffic and pollution.

Not only do the environment and your city's traffic congestion benefit from ridesharing, but you can also save money since you will not have to pay for all of your own gasoline and car maintenance. Instead, you will be splitting these costs with others in your carpool.

There are many resources available on the Internet if you want to increase your knowledge of ridesharing. These sites not only help to educate commuters, but many of these sites also have free ride matching services. For example, RideshareOptimizer.com offers complementary ride matching services for commuters nationally.