Slugs are people who anonymous ride-share, with drivers who need an
extra body or two to get into the
high-occupancy lanes.
Slugs line up for a free ride at designated spots such as commuter parking lots, street corners, and
bus stops where drivers use them to get in
high-occupancy lanes to make commuting for the driver faster.
Slugs is reported to come from bus drivers, who were waived off by people at
bus stops who were waiting to be picked up by commuters. The "slugs" term was orginally used as the term for a counterfeit coins. In this case it is used for "fake" bus riders, neigher of which pay.
The slugging process works like this. A driver comes up to a line of people going to
work or the city and announces his destination to the "caller" who is the person who is at the
head of the line. The "caller" then relays the destination information to the slugs behind, to find the persons in the front of the line going to the same place.
There is a
slug etiquitte, which includes never giving the driver your name, no eating, no drinking, extremely limited sell phone use, no messing with the music, no messing with the
windows, and no
heavy pollical, religious debates etc.
Counterfeit coins used in subways and buses are also known as slugs.
Don'
t you hate being on highway with bumper to bumper traffic, and see these crazy
car poolers in the high occupancy vehicle lanes zoom by.
No, when traffic is really bad I pick up a couple slugs. I think of it as carpooling lite. Where you have the freedom to do what you want when you want, fast, on fast highways.
But do you really want to have a bunch of strangers in your
car?
When you commute with slugs there is a certain amount of etiquitte that you don't find with some
car poolers, who think they have the same rights in your
car as they do in their
car.