bla bla car

There is a main difference.
This is used by people who are actually going someplaces on their own, and wish to share the driving costs with others.
With Uber there is a driver who takes you, let's say to the airport, but they weren't going to the airport themselves, they are going there only to take you.
So Uber is more similar to a taxi service, while BlaBlaCar is a truly cost sharing way. It's people connecting with others who need to go to the same place and share the driving costs, which in Europe are higher than in America due to high fuel taxes and tolls.
The way it works the driver, gives the pick up point and the drop off point (generally a central area in the city of departure and the city of arrival. S/he also will give the price.
It's a low cost alternative to travel, although generally not as fast as the trains.
It is used primarily for long distance intercity travel. It could be to travel let's say from Rome to Milan, or Madrid to Valencia, or Paris to Lyon, etc. You won't find people willing to share the cost to just go a few miles across two points in the same city or to go to the airport. There is Uber (where available) or regular taxis for that.

Thank you for the information :)

I tried to use them but couldn't find the app for my phone. I wasn't sure if my app store wasn't geared toward non-English apps?

You pay a share of the costs of the trip, tolls and fuel, depending on how many riders there are in the car.

So is the bla bla provider obliged to have proper car insurance before offering this service.? How can you ascertaine if the driver is safe to drive with? If the driver is a male, is a lone woman passenger safe with him? How much money does one actually save using this service and is it worth it the risk? To me it sounds like hitch hiking but you have to pay for the lift.

As a solo traveler I'm too nervous to use it myself, but I looked at BlaBlaCar options between a couple of towns in northern France (don't remember which ones) and the time savings was huge compared to buses. The reason I looked was that my trip wasn't a straight shot by train and took quite a long time for not all that much distance. BlaBlaCar may or may not have been much cheaper than the bus, but the travel time was perhaps 1/3 as long. I might have tried it if I had not been traveling alone.

For long trips, I think the speed might approach that of the train (not TGV, obviously) but at close to the price of a much slower bus--and without the expense of last-minute rail fares.

Car Sharing has always been around, at least for the past few decades in Germany. You can choose to ride with a woman if you prefer. Mitfahr Zentral is what you would look for here.
Bla-bla is simply a new name and might be recognized in all countries?

I have used service a few times and worked well for me.
Like Airbnb ,there's public feedback from each rider about the driver.
It's not as big a thing as in UK asmainland Europe

someone asked this question a few days ago in the Portugal forum. It's nothing like Uber. I looked at the site and wasn't impressed.

The bottom line is this is almost a hitch-hiking app. The difference is that instead of standing in the rain hoping for a ride you can arrange it in advance but pay something towards the fuel.

Some drivers were marked as verified - but when i dug deeper all that may be verfified is their email and phone numbers, clearly they will work as the person needs them to get them booking and money!

Within UK (presumably elsewhere) there was some insurance cover from Blablacar included. Where a huge question hung over it was the other passengers. Drivers advertise a number of empty seats, you may get to see the previous feedback for the driver but how would you know who else would be in the car?

I've just done a random request for a ride from Manchester to Glasgow next Thursday afternoon. There were two offers, £22.50 or £29 (centre to centre). Train tickets for the same journey at that time are still availbale for £28 (and were previously cheaper) and the journey will be faster. But then something struck me. They were both saying they had three empty seats and all seats were priced the same. So the cheapest could have been taking £67.50. But UK law only allows them to take a fair share of the costs, and the fuel for this run would be about £25 and the driver's own share has to be deducted. So they are both technically operating illegally and their own insurance would be invalidated.

I've never used them, but their advertising jingle sure sticks in my ear!

I had multiple French locals recommend it as an option. None seemed to think there were any safety issues, just a business transaction where car owners save money by sharing a ride and riders find a cheaper alternative to get where they are going.

So were the "French locals" you spoke to men or women?

My friend who works for them is a woman.

My German friends, both men and women, use these ridesharing apps all the time. I haven't, mostly because the thought of being stuck in a car for hours with strangers attempting to make conversation is socially terrifying to me, much less attempting to do so in a language I don't speak well. But I've never heard anyone voice safety concerns. One of my friends even had a brief fling with a female driver he did a rideshare with! So if you're a confident extrovert, or just willing to sit with strangers to save some time or money, I'd go for it. Of course there are safety issues but these websites generally have ratings and reviews for drivers, so if someone is a serial killer they'd be playing a real long con to get you in that car. That said, you never know. It's like CouchSurfing.org - largely safe but some dangerous people have used the service to harm people, too.