Getting Into A Stranger's Car

(CBS)  Just across the Potomac, near Mount Vernon, where George Washington slept, outside a motel where he didn't, CBS News Correspondent Steve Hartman found for his "Everybody Has A Story" series Anthony Jacobik, a not-so-famous American.

Tony Jacobik is a financial manager for the federal government. And because he works in Washington and lives in Fairfax County, Virginia, every day, twice a day, he has to face one of the toughest commutes in the country.

He says, "Sometimes it would take me an hour, 20. Sometimes it would take me two hours."

But now Jacobik gets home in half that time, thanks to a commuting alternative known as 'slugging." Slugging is kind of like car pooling in that you get to take full advantage of the diamond or the HOV-3 lines, but it is different from carpooling in that your passengers are total strangers.

Recently, he met a woman from Ghana, Africa, and he says, "You get to know people."

And yet any schmo can get in Jacobik's car. "But he's a nicely dressed Schmo," Jacobik responds with a laugh.

Every day, thousands of people from all over D.C. have no problem just popping into a car with somebody they have never met.

Here's how it works: The passengers, or slugs as they're called, form spontaneous queues during rush hour. Each row has a different final destination with people holding up signs of where they want to go. If a driver is headed that same way, he or she hooks up with the slugs and pretty soon everybody is zipping along, to the mutual benefit of all.

Jacobik notes, "I think society has become very xenophobic. There is this constant fear. And by having this trust in someone, you become a better person. I think that's what it's all about."

And with that, he led Hartman, with the toss of a dart, to Litchfield, Conn., in search of his next interview subject.