Friday March 31, 2006
Carpooling keeps friends together
FOR Ngoi Shu Shan and her classmates, carpooling has not only helped them save on petrol consumption but also strengthened their relationship.
Ngoi, who has been carpooling with Lim Shwu Shya, Ng Kok Yew, See Toi Quan Tack and Alfred Ong Ley Wei for over a year, said they were closer to each other compared with other course mates.
“Instead of eating alone, we can now go for lunches and dinners together after class,” she said.
She said carpooling was also safer compared with using the public transport.
“I used to take public transport before I started to carpool.
“It was a very scary experience for me as I had to walk to the bus station, which is about 15 minutes walk from the university on my own, and sometimes my class only finishes at 10pm,” she said, adding that she had heard of cases of students being the victims of snatch thieves and flashers.
The Universiti Malaya manufacturing engineering student said she overcome her fear after her father bought her a car, which allowed her to carpool with her friends.
“Each of us can now save about RM20 each week and with the money we go for movies, karaoke sessions, and have better food for lunch and dinner!
“As for Kok Yew, he can now call his girlfriend more often,” she teased.
Kok Yew, who takes turns to drive his course mates to university in his family car, said he preferred carpooling to using public transport as it gave him more time to rest.
“It is very hard to have control over my time as the bus is always late and instead of taking 10 minutes for the journey from my house to the university, it takes me at least 30 minutes with the public transport,” he said.
As for Ley Wei, one of the advantages of carpooling is that they do not have to waste time finding a parking lot.
“The university has only a few parking lots for students and by 10am, most of them are taken up.
“Just like yesterday, we spent 30 minutes trying to park our car and the problem would be worse if we did not carpool”.
See Toi said he learnt tolerance whilst carpooling to university.
“Sometimes one of us will have to leave a bit later than the others. When it happens we will have to be patient while waiting for the person,” he said.
Shwu Shya said the five of them would discuss pick-up times the day before to ensure they were not late for class.
“Sometimes when we really cannot make it (find a common time), we will drive our own cars but carpooling is my first choice.”
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