I’ve always been a big fan of telecommuting, because I think it’s one of the fastest and easiest ways to get cars and sport utility vehicles off congested roads.

Research shows that employees who work from home or from telecenters one or two days a week are more productive and are happier with their jobs.

Because so many jobs can be done in this fashion, a unified effort to promote telecommuting seems a no-brainer.

In fact, a law states that federal agencies must allow a certain minimum number of their employees to telecommute.

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However, many of them are still falling short, when the resulting savings in gas and improvements in air quality are obvious and easily measured. But there may be another take I hadn’t considered.

I got an e-mail from David the other day that certainly made me think.

He wrote: “One of the reasons people have suddenly gone silent on telecommuting is because it suddenly dawned on everybody that if the job can be done at home, it can be done in India.

“As a person who has already been outsourced once to India, I can tell you, it’s not fun.

“In fact, an Indian could even do your job. He [or she] just would have to listen to lots of people communicating with him [or her] by e-mail and read the news.

“Isn’t that great? It’s enough to make anybody endorse free trade.

“Hope I don’t sound too bitter.”

I can imagine that labor unions see this as a potential as well, which may explain why they haven’t gotten too strongly behind it.

There are still advantages to being local.

For example, in order to write this column from my home office, I still drive the same roads and highways as the readers; I still rub elbows with commuters on the trains, and occasionally I attend public hearings and other meetings.

A person in New Delhi would have a hard time doing that.

Still, David does make a point worth considering.

Questions, comments, random musings? Write to Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com.