Say Goodbye to California HOV Lanes in 2011

But only during car pool times, not any others

 

My '10 Prius is not yet in my hot little hands, but that has not prevented me from carpooling routinely the past five years. My fifty mile roundtrip commute and taking two or three vehicles off the road is what they designed California's HOV lanes for. Afterall, the HOV lanes came years before the hybrid/alternative fuel/electric vehicle.

During these carpooling years, we looked at those stickered hybrids traveling solo in our lane with more than a little suspicion. Yeah, it seemed they drove slower than most. But it bugged us that they did not contribute to unclogging our freeways. One guy always argued that hybrids get better mileage in stop-n-go traffic.

Like a couple other posters here, I bicycle commute to work twice per week. So we all do our part to make this a greener world in any manner possible.

 

You are definitely no longer eligible. They hit the limit on # of stickers for qualifying hybrid stickers LONG ago. See Clean Air Stickers - High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lane Usage.

 

Hey guys/gals,
2004 Prius here (140,000miles! Over 100k+"HOV MILES").

I drive nearly 150miles a day from Inland Empire into Orange CA. I don't see an expiration date on my HOV stickers so they can pry it from my cold dead batteries!

 

While I have enjoyed the use of the HOV lanes for the past 2 years, and mourn that the privilege will be yanked in a year and a half, I have to say that I feel as many of you do: the need to keep "rewarding" the purchase of hybrids by early adopters has to come to an end some time. I knew going in that the sunset for this privilege was scheduled for Jan 1, 2011 (after the first extension was passed; it actually was going to end in 2009 originally). I had hopes for another extension, but realistically, it seems that this perk has probably run its course.

I'm considering solutions like: more telecommuting; actually FIND another person to carpool with! Use public transit. So for me at least, there are options to just grinding along in 101 traffic. There is the hope one day of "Lexus Lanes," but it sounds like that won't happen for 101 until after I retire, so I guess that's out!

Here's my hope: by the time the privilege ends for me, I REALLY hope that 101 is as clogged as it used to be in the AM commute (for some reason, the PM commute is ALWAYS clogged). Why? Because that means the days of "jobless recovery" are over and people are working again and unemployment is once again below 10% in CA and elsewhere.

I thank God for every Monday I'm still employed!

It's all a matter of perspective...

Kim

 

I'll be interested in hearing how you explain that to the CHP officer who nabs you in the carpool lane illegally.

The expiration is not on the stickers, but the letter you got with the stickers made it pretty clear that the privilege could be revoked at any time and even selectively for different roadways.

You might be able to convince a judge that you didn't read that and didn't know about the end of the privilege, but I expect even that would only work one time.

 

Who reads fine print (Home Loans, Car Loans, Hov stickers, etc). I was too excited to to get those 3 stickers on my bumpers and start driving!
My prediction, "AINT GONNA HAPPEN". Somebody powerful owns a Prius and is going to convince the state to "Stop The Green Hate"


If not,
I'll be the Caucasian male in the HOV Lane with a death grip on my steering wheel, attack dogs at my feet and helicopters circling overhead then.

 

Last I heard there are 4 stickers and the 2004 didn't come in a touring model (ref. to car owned).

 

i think HOV lanes should be weighted and separate

40 mpg and up, 2 people
30 mpg and up 3 people
below 30 mpg... 4 people.

buses have their own lane along with van pools

 

As much as I want the unemployment to go down, I really hate 101 traffic. I just wish the road is empty and I can hypermile to work instead of getting tailgated for not tailgating!

 

This argument is partly academic. The real problem here is traditional cars idling in traffic. In a perfect world cars wouldn't idle at all, ever. Then you could additionally tune them to run better without having to accommodate the special requirements of idling the car at all. In the cities (where HOV lanes are, mostly), the stop-and-go traffic and idling on freeways and at lights is where all the pollution happens.

Plus, IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY, cars are way less efficient (more fuel load per turn of the engine) at idle.

~ dan ~

 

I have a recommendation for everyone that wants to get California carpool stickers. There are 85,000 of them out there. Go buy a used Prius that has the stickers. (I love that the state only charged $8 for the original stickers.)

I just purchased a 2004 Prius with carpool stickers. (And for the record, I agree with others that the stickers are ugly but it sure makes the web searches easy. You can spot them in any picture that might get posted but I digress.)

I registered at Auto Trader .com and set up a free daily search. I used the keyword "carpool" because those stickers are advertised as a feature just like the Nav System or JBL premium sound. I got a hit nearly every day for about 3 weeks by searching a 50 mile radius around Los Angeles. (There was an ad for a 2002 with 198,000 miles that wouldn't start cause the main battery was dead. But, they figured the Calif carpool stickers were worth $2000. Asking price $2500. Too funny.)

In essense, I paid $11.5K for car pool lane stickers and they came with a free Prius attached...

 

Virginia's HOV exemption for hybrids was originally scheduled to expire in July of 2006 (perhaps the first time ever that Virginia has been more progressive earlier than California ). The same argument was made (too many hybrids clogging the lanes). Similar activity in the state legislature to limit/eliminate them. Hybrids still qualify for HOV in the Old Dominion, although there was a compromise that did pass, grandfathering in the pre-expiration CF (Clean Fuel) license plates (we don't use stickers) for all HOV lanes, and limiting post-expiration plates to fewer roads.

One of the reasons I bought another hybrid to replace my 2004 Prius was so that I could keep the original plates with the full HOV access. Plates travel with the owner in Virginia, not with the car.

 

TRICKY TERM, efficiency...

At idle, the parasitic losses of running the valve train, pumps, A/C, etc., uses almost ALL the gasoline's energy, with nearly zero output horsepower. So, yeah, that is REALLY inefficient with respect to power.

When you are heavily accelerating you use MORE gas per REV, but you are generating LOTS of output HP, so that is more efficient in terms of OUTPUT POWER, but perhaps wasteful in that you may be wasting that power unnecessarily but working out of the engines best efficiency band. Power conversion efficiency doesn't necessarily mean good or bad mileage.

When you are at speed and the engine RPM is low and you are not accelerating, the engine is converting inefficiently again, BUT you are covering LOTS OF DISTANCE per RPM so you get decent GAS MILEAGE. [The engine is NOT using A LOT of gas per rpm but almost all the the energy content is used for parasitic losses and overcoming wind resistence, so that is why it is inefficient.] What speed is the best for your mileage depends upon the details of the car and drivetrain.

 

Dude ... did you notice this thread is years old?

Don't feel bad thought. I predict that somewhere around 2015 there'll still be CA folks w/ old crackley stickers on their freshly acquired Gen II Prius looking up this thread ... reading none of it, then they'll post, "hey, anyone hear if the CA stickers will ever get extended?"

As for VA stickers? . . . whole different ballgame. Tons of fed politicians there want to drive in the car pool lane so they can get into DC faster. And being based in self interest & self dealing ... those politician folk's stickers may end up lasting in perpetuity.

 

Percent seat occupancy would be better.

Why should a 10 MPG 9 passenger vehicle with 4 occupants, be allowed to use them when a 30 MPG 2 passenger vehicle isn't?

 

I just got this back from Assemblyman Lieu re AB1500...Time to call your state senator....
== === ==

Thank you for contacting our office regarding AB 1500 (Lieu), that would extend HOV lane access privileges to 2014 for clean fuel. This bill is currently on the Senate Floor and we anticipate it coming up for a vote in the near future. Last year, the Senate policy committee requested that we make this a two year bill to allow for further study. After their review, the committee concluded that HOV lane privileges for clean fuel vehicles should be maintained and confirmed their support for AB 1500.

We anticipate it going to the Governor for his consideration well in advance of the January 2011 sunset in current law.

Please do not hesitate to contact our office at (310) 615-3515 should you have any questions or if you would like a subsequent update on the status of this bill.

 

I gave up my stickers in favor of my 2010 beauty. I don't regret it but then again I drive 2 miles to work!

 

IMO It would be unfair and elitist to extend HOV stickers without offering the sticker to all hybrid drivers that qualified under the original plan.

 

It makes no sense to extend the HOV sticker program for existing vehicles, assuming that the intent of the program was to encourage Californians to purchase hybrid vehicles.

What might make sense is to let the old HOV stickers expire; and offer a new HOV sticker program to buyers of new hybrid vehicles, to encourage sales of new hybrids into the state (if the CA state government thinks that such incentives are still needed.)