Kicking asphalt

If you're heading out of town for Thanksgiving weekend, you may find the roads less clogged than usual at this time - the American Automobile Association is predicting fewer Americans hitting the roads this year for holiday travel. This is despite the fact that - as my colleague Ronnie Polaneczky so ably documented just below - drivers' newfound attention to saving gas over the summer has driven prices down below last year's levels.

But this is like a Thanksgiving reunion - in other words, it's all relative. Even if it's fewer than last year, there will still be plenty of cars to get in your way, raising the potential for accidents, travel oddities or general road-based mishaps. That's why AAA exists, after all.

But now the AAAs virtual monopoly on roadside assistance is being challenged in a big way by "the green alternative to triple-A," Better World Club. Hoping to grab a good portion of those drivers who have left AAA due to dissatisfaction with its service (including this blogger) or with its policy positions (including lobbying against the Clean Air Act), Better World Club is offering coverage comparable to AAA with several green-oriented add-ons. These include carbon offsets, discounts for hybrids, gas rebates, coverage for bicycles and 1% of gross profits donated to green efforts. And though they don't list it, as the image from their home page shows, they do have a sense of humor (their eNewsletter is Kicking Asphalt).

You can hear more details about Better World in this 4-minute audio clip (MP3) from the Green Festival, where I met some of their representatives and got a quick rundown of the service that Tom and Ray, the Car Talk guys, summarized as "Finally, an auto club with genuinely decent values."

As the site says, what better way to improve your Car-ma?