Who should be able to use carpool lanes?

Why should a 32 mpg Ford Escape hybrid be allowed to use the carpool lane while a 32 mpg Toyota Yaris is excluded?

First of all, up to half of all automobile carbon emitted is due to traffic congestion (saw an article yesterday although the link escapes me now). Excluding any vehicle from the carpool lane increases emissions, a bad thing, no?

Secondly, excluding them does not simply put the same vehicle in another lane (you're too smart for that kind of simplistic logic). It encourages people to make different vehicle choices. It would reduce the incentive to buy hybrid vehicles, hence increasing emissions overall. If the goal is to reduce emissions, encourage more people to choose hybrid vehicles by allowing vehicle owners who pay a hefty premium to reduce the emissions for his or her required use to derive some benefit for doing so. Buynig a hybrid vehicle certainly isn't one of the situations where the owners ever recoup their innvestment (if you look up the total lifetime cost including battery replacements and other maintenance), so some other incentive must be provided to reward that positive behavior.

Just because you don't have children and don't drive in snow on a frequent basis doesn't mean that everyone else can get by with a Toyota Yaris. So if people are going to drive larger cars then you for years to come, would you rather have them increase their MPG by 50% or not?

Besides, a hybrid Yaris would be similar to a Prius or hybrid Civic, so the same incentive is available to Yaris-class owners as well. Whether you are willing to ante up for for a hybrid sedan or not is your decision, and (in my opinion) you should be rewarded if you do and your personal per capita impact decreases accordingly.

Here's one article on congestion and automobile emissions:

http://www.ecobridge.org/content/g_cty.htm

Reduce Traffic Congestion & Reduce Greenhouse Emissions

In a Texas A & M study on traffic congestion in the United States, engineers found that drivers wasted 598 million gallons of gas annually while sitting in heavy traffic in Los Angeles and New York City alone.[32] This 598 million gallons of gas translates to about 7.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually in just these two cities. More must be done by cities to bring an end to heavy traffic congestion that unnecessarily wastes fuel and contributes significantly to global warming.

Here in MN, car pools are used between normal rush hours both morning/evenings for vehicles that have more than two people in them and the MN DOT has also allowed people who have a fast pass to use the lane for a fee, the fee is based on the amount traffic on the road at the time, some days it ranges from $0.25 all the way to $4. Just depends on the traffic.

Where I live and the stretch of freeway I drive I don't have a HOV lane, I wish I did, I do car pool to work with my wife for about 90% of my drive.

Good point...clearly the incentive is to get people to buy hybrids but you knew that already. Too bad my Honda Civvy isn't allowed in the car pool lane as well. Id say the most logical answer would be mpg/1000lb of vehicle or something along those lines...that way vehicles can easily be rated and it should exclude those that are a joke...21mpg hmpf.

Had to weigh in on this one - I'm torn between my BMW X5 and my '70 'Cuda 6-Pack. Either way, hybrids get outta my way!

Sorry Dana - just messin' with ya :-)

But the answer is any vehicle with more than one passenger. That's what HOV means. If they want to base it on mileage, build another lane - the MPG lane.

Very good point. Just because it is a hybrid doesn't mean it gets good mileage. I think it is more of an attempt to jumpstart the green economy which is both good and bad. Hey, I love my Prius and I do drive in the jammed southern california freeways in the car pool lanes where they are available.

Anybody should, this bit of political correctness is nonsense.

Besides I resent having to carry a life like mannequin in the car just so I can drive in a lane that I helped pay for.

It doesn't haunt me but I wonder what happens after one dies. If nothing happens then of course I won't understand that as the answer. My consciousness will have gone by then. What happens if we're just reincarnated? We won't remember our past life. Perhaps there is a life, but I feel it's more likely that the answer to death will always be unknown.

Bicyclists

Just a guess, but carpoolers.

Only degreed climatologists.