My faith in humanity has gone way up today. Returing to San Francisco from Oakland this morning, I tried out the "Casual Carpool" - an extraordinary FREE ride to San Francisco. Basically, there are certain street corners in Oakland where you simply show up around 7-8 in the morning and you find a line of cars casually lined up like taxis at the airport. You simply walk up to the front of the line and hop in someone's car, and off you go!

Why in the world would complete strangers do this? Because if you have three people in a car you get to use the HOV lane and NOT pay any bridge toll! It's a fantastic win-win situation - the driver gets there faster without paying a toll, and you get a free ride! Society benefits as well because it's a traffic reducer. Totally fantastic. There is even a website with maps to the designated corners: Check it out.