At lunch today, a good friend made an interesting admission. "I've reached my limit," he said, "I'm a scofflaw with a cause. I'm going to practice civil disobedience."
What's got him going?
My friend bought a Smart car a few weeks ago. Last Friday as he merged from 495 onto 66 West and was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic before Nutley, he had an epiphany of sorts. There he sat in his little, fuel-efficient commuter, clearly eschewing luxury and comfort for the sake of "doing the right thing." As he sat there, though, three vehicles in a row passed by him in the HOV lane. The first was a Lexus SUV hybrid with one passenger (EPA Highway mileage 24 MPG). The second was a Ford Escape hybrid with one passenger (EPA highway milage 30 MPG). The third was a Hummer H1 with two passengers (EPA highway mileage 17 MPG). That's when he snapped.
His little Smart car gets 45-48 MPG, but because it's not a "hybrid" or "clean fuel vehicle" he can't legally be in the HOV lanes even though his fuel consumption doubles that of the Lexus and nearly triples the H1.
It's time for our legislature to rethink the whole hybrid exemption and set a new standard. I realize that newly purchased hybrids don't get the added HOV benefit (and let's be honest, a lot of people bought hybrids to speed up their commutes, not do their part for the environment). I also realize that the current policy of allowing hybrids in HOV lanes is set to expire in June 2009.
I say kill it now and do something different. If the whole purpose for creating the hybrid exemption was to encourage people to buy more fuel efficient vehicles, then the type of motor or drive assembly should be irrelevant. When the law was passed the only hybrids were the Honda Insight (45+ MPG) and Toyota Prius (45+ MPG). Now we have SUVs with hybrid engines so their owners can feel a little better about the vehicle choices even though they still rank in the bottom half of vehicle effeciency. What does a Lexus SUV hybrid get you over it's standard engine twin? 2 MPG. Heck, I can improve my fuel efficiency by 2 MPG just by shifting a little more carefully. Does 2 MPG really justify a big pat on the back and a pass to skip by traffic in the HOV lane?
Let's change the HOV exemption to use EPA estimated mileage instead. Why should an SUV that still guzzles at 24 MPG get the advantage of using the less congested HOV lanes while a gas sipping Smart is relegated to the lanes reserving for "normal" cars? Rather than issuing special plates for hybrids, let's issue plates for highly efficient vehicles (HEVs) that get more than, say, 35 MPG highway as measured. Then it doesn't matter if it's a hybrid or a Smart or even a standard Honda Civic. That would add the Toyota Corolla and Mini Cooper to the eligible list as well while removing SUVs and larger hybrids that are more fuel efficient than their standard engine twins, but are not really "green." Our HOV lanes then become HOV/HEV lanes. Every few years, the standard gets raised a little as more fuel efficient cars come on the market. Got an electric car that can do highway speeds? It qualifies. Got a natural gas vehicle? It qualifies. Got a hybrid that eeks out 24 instead of 22 MPG (as is the case with the Lexus RX SUV hybrid vs. the standard Lexus RX)? Sorry, you'll need to sit in traffic with the rest of us.
Until the law changes, though, you'll see my friend tooling along in his Smart in the HOV lane--a scofflaw with a cause. He'll be nice to the officer who writes him his ticket, but he'll take his day in court to point out the stupidity of a law that claims to help the environment. It's his own act of civil disobedience. I can't say I blame him.
First, I thought that only the "old" hybrids were permitted to use the HOV lanes, but that the new ones are excluded? Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's what I thought the rule was. That's one of the reasons, I intend to hold on to my 04 Civic for a while.
Also, it seems to me that the most efficient thing we can do is carpool because you really get your efficiency bang for your buck that way.
In other words, if three people pile in a 20 MPG Lexus, in some ways you're getting 60 MPG in terms of the bang for your buck and the people being moved, right?
It seems to me that modifying the hybrid exemption to only permit **HIGH** MPG hybrids to get the exemption makes sense, but carpooling still ought to get you into the lanes.
The biggest problem is that the state needs to put some real money into enforcement because people violate the HOV lane rules all the time.
You're correct that new hybrids don't qualify, but that could always change. The hybrid extension has been extended at least twice.
OK - I might make an exemption for ZERO emissions vehicles... but we don't have many of those yet - do we?
My Prius gets great mileage, and I love it's gadget features... but it is NOT a clean fuel car, despite Virginia's silly laws. It still burns dirty dinosaur remains, and pollutes the atmosphere.
It's time to wipe out the clean-fuel exemption or completely revise it so that only cars that are really clean can get the exemption (hydrogen, electric only).
I realize that generating the hydrogen or power may or may not be clean itself, but that is actually a much easier problem to solve because there are so few power generating facilities, it is much easier to fix them.
Let's keep the car issue separate and only reward truly clean fueled cars with HOV exemptions.
They are really, really cute... but I dunno if I could put up with a car without regenerative braking in DC traffic now that I have been spoiled by one... also the CVT is pretty essential in high traffic areas too.
I have to look more closely at the Smart Car if it gets that much mileage.
I think that limit should be something like the 90th percentile combined MPG (10 percent of cars have efficiency greater than the 90th percentile). The USDOT already collects this information for CAFE purposes, and it shouldn't be hard to determine the 90th percentile. Each year, VA DMV can determine the standard and issue HEV plates to people with vehicles exceeding the standard.
My number might be off in that the 90th percentile might result in overcrowding of the HOV lanes, but it can be adjusted accordingly.
I also think that the HOV lanes should be mostly HOV rather than high efficiency vehicles. Perhaps the clean fuel plates should reduce the required number of occupants by 1 (e.g., a car with clean fuel plates can go with two in HOV-3 lanes on I-395)?
All this is a mute point in the long run however when the HOV lanes convert to HOT lanes there will be no hybrid exempltions
I agree with your first point, HOV are intended to reduce traffic; and 3-persons per vehicle gets better mileage and creates less traffic than any 3 clean fuel or hybrid automobile combined.
The I-95/I-395 plan is still being worked on. There are alot of issues that need to be worked out. Currently there are two reversable HOV lanes. Plans are to add a third lane and switch to HOT and extend until Dumfries. I am assuming the lanes will still be reversable but that hasn't benn finalized. Two new lanes will be added from Dumfries to Massaponex.