Carpool Lane Frustration

I hope you weren't in a rush to complete the customer satisfaction survey. If your account is accurate why not post a bad yelp review? I would attempt to get something out of the dealer before slamming them.

 

What is this "customer satisfaction survey" people talk about? Is it something Toyota sends by postal mail to the buyer, or is it e-mail, or what? I have had my Prime for 5 months, and I don't recall seeing anything for me to provide feedback to Toyota about the buying experience.

 

It's an email for an online Toyota "customer satisfaction survey". I believe it is dealer initiated but also sent to corporate. My response was mostly positive, except for having an empty traction battery. I got a call from my dealer the next day, telling me they are installing charging stations. Nice for the future Prime buyers.

 

I got bad advice from my sales person in that i had to go to the DMV office in order to get my stickers
I think the problem is most dealers don't care, Prime makes far less than 1% of their business ... and mine wasn't charged either, they kept the chargers in a separate room, away from the vehicle ... and i never got a survey invite either (au contraire, other car is a Hyundai Sonata hybrid and i got a 2nd survey after 1 year) ... still loving my Prime

 

I am SHOCKED! SCHOCKED, I SAY!!! that anyone would even suggest a dealer doesn't care!!! Of course they care (about ripping you off).

 

Think you're frustrated now? When you get your stickers and get to drive in the carpool lane, you'll find it doesn't move that fast because of all the scofflaws.


iPhone ? Pro

 

And then after you get the decals, you realize there are some HOV lanes that are not free. Like the Golden Gate bridge. And on some HOT lanes, you have to hide the transponder or you get charged even though you have the decals. And then if you're from out of town your just f&$ked in SoCal. All these different routes and all it takes is forgetting to turn on avoid toll roads and suddenly you paid $4 to pass by Orange County. (I have to turn avoid toll roads off in NorCal or I get routed around bridges.)

 

Sorry, but I had to comment on this. You are talking about high occupancy vehicle or carpool lanes. The whole idea is to reduce traffic by encouraging people to carpool. Of course they will be congested if you can drive in them just because you have a Prius with a single occupant.

 

I believe we Western Washingtonians are different than SoCal-ians. We actually use HOV lanes for real carpools, enough so to keep them busy.

 

This used to be vigorously discussed at length in the PiP subforum. The question is, what is the purpose of of the carpool/HOV lanes? Is it for reducing traffic congestion, or for encouraging behavior that reduces total emissions? For the former, giving a pass to BEVs or PHEVs does not make any sense; for the latter it does. Many people do not realize that the emissions factor is a big part of the rationale for HOV/carpool lanes.

 

One thing is clear though. There's no chance that the green HOV stickers will be extended beyond 1/1/19. I suspect that for the white HOV stickers, it might be at best extended for 1-2 more years beyond 1/1/19.

 

If this bill goes through, it would extend green and white stickers until 2025. That would be seriously awesome.

Bill would extend carpool lane access for hybrid and electric cars

Don't forget, about 30% (or more) of the drivers in the HoV lane are there illegally. Green/White sticker drivers probably represent a fraction of that. More enforcement of HoV violations will greatly reduce congestion in the lane.

A few weeks ago, I saw a single driver cut across a double-double solid line into the HoV lane, then a city motorcycle cop (not CHP) came zipping by, looked into the car, gave them "the look" then took off. The car then proceeded to cut back across the double-double solid to get "legal" again. Make of this what you will (My take is that since it wasn't CHP, he didn't want to be bothered pulling them over.)

 

I don't see why it can't be for both. I also don't see why we can't change original intent. Originally, the Bay Bridge toll was only going to be collected until the bonds taken to pay for its construction was repaid. Well, the bridge is paid for (before the new east span anyway) and we're still paying tolls.

 

In SoCal, it's more about getting from point A to point B faster on the freeway without traffic. I doubt the HOV lanes help with emissions that much

 

That's called political grandstanding, nothing more. When you take a look at all of the currently available plug in vehicles (with more to come) as well as the upcoming BEV's, it's clear that from a policy standpoint the green stickers will expire and that any remaining perks (if any remain) will be limited to the white stickers only. This is no different than when the old yellow stickers expired back in 2011 when hybrids became more popular.

 

...I am not expecting green stickers to die in 2019. Older PiP Greenies might be a lost cause though (Plug-in America has been asking to kick out the 2012-2105 PiPs).. It could be a huge negative for Plug-ins if CA dropped green stickers, which I do not expect to happen. OK well they might change the colors...to Blue we need blue for CA...right (I mean left)?

I was just out there and it doesn't take long to see an old yellow sticker on a Prii - so yellow is out.

 

Disagree. Carpool lanes are not congested because of green (or white) stickered vehicles being there. There aren't that many of them. It's because of carpool lane cheats.

 

But as I understand it, the federal regulations involved state that if congestion increases to to some threshold, that the clean air decals must be cancelled. The fact that the lanes are congested with cheats is not relevant. The regulation only considers the level of congestion, not the reason why.