[tmalsburg2]

In Germany, carpooling has been a mainstream thing since the mid-90ies or perhaps even earlier. The majority of trips are long-distance, i.e across-country. You are right that carpooling has has some shortcomings but it's so ridiculously cheap that many people happily accept those shortcomings. I used it many times when I was a student and 90% of the trips went as planned.