Monday, February 15, 1999
Single motorists can now do their cruising on the Internet
BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cars long have been part of the American dating scene: Drive-ins. First dates. Proms. Cruising. Especially cruising. Youths driving slowly up and down the street letting others know they're available. It's alive and well in Cincinnati's Eden Park and Detroit's Woodward Avenue.
Car decal carries service's URL and driver's screen name
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Now dating and the car are working in a new dimension — the Internet.
Commuting to work, stuck at a traffic light long enough to get a good glimpse at the driver in the next lane. Turns out he or she is cute. But the light turns green. The good-looking driver is on his or her way. Gone.
But with the help of a Web site started in October — www.trafficgems.com — maybe not forever.
Here's how it works:
Signup is available on the Web site. The first month is free right now; $10 a month after that.
The driver chooses a screen name and types in name, sex, sexual preference, age, location, hobbies, what they're driving, what they do for a living, what they're looking for and a little more about themselves.
Drivers download a red and white decal with their screen name and the Web site address.
It's a 2-inch by 4-inch temporary label which gets taped on the windows on both sides of the car. A more permanent self-stick decal is sent in about a month.
So, if that cute driver has a decal, the interested driver at least has a Web site and screen name to go on.
Using the Web site, they can find the screen name and send an e-mail. E-mail addresses are anonymous.
Only screen names are on the Web site and the site operator routes the e-mail to the person's real e-mail address.
Web site co-creater and New Yorker Liz Smith says she is combining cyber-culture with car culture: “People are sitting there in traffic so we thought why not do something fun — why not love?”
So far about 2,000 people — mostly in the United States — have signed up. That includes about 100 members in Ohio and 30 members in each Indiana and Kentucky.
Car-cyber dating seems to be a natural progression of our history of using the car as a platform for showing off and getting dates.
The dean of arts and science at Northern Michigan University, Michael Marsden, says it's because the car has been and continues to be a way we communicate with one another.
“Nobody's been able to come up with a concrete answer why,” says Mr. Marsden, who has been studying America's fascination with the automobile for years.
“But somehow a person sitting in a convertible is much more attractive than a person sitting on a park bench.”
Tanya Albert's “Commuting” column appears each Monday in the Metro section. E-mail at tmalbert@enquirer.com
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