SMART Car in HOV Lane

[fly4fun]

I wish Smart Cars were allowed in the HOV Lanes (Car Pool Lane) in the Phoenix AZ area.

Hybrids and motorcycles are allowed but why not Smart Cars?

Is this the same for all Citys.

[Carl242]

SF used to give stickers for hybrids to use the HOV lanes, and it used to pee me off because at the time I drove a golf TDI which got better real-world freeway mileage and polluted less (was running on biodiesel) and i did not qualify. They stopped giving out the stickers, however--i heard it was because people would drive their hybrids 55 in the carpool lane to maintain the best mileage and cause backups behind them.

One cool thing about CA: my friend who has a bike says that lane-splitting on a motorcycle is legal here

[JPaul]

HOVs around Washington DC require knowledge of the various policies (I-66, 95/395, 270, etc...), each authorities involved having adopted different rules and schedules.

For those interested:
http://www.commuterpage.com/hov.htm

[chieftmc]

Originally Posted by Carl242

......One cool thing about CA: my friend who has a bike says that lane-splitting on a motorcycle is legal here

It's the ONLY state where it's legal!

[gadgets]

It's my understanding that in Phoenix you need a special permit to drive in HOV lanes with hybrid and that they have stopped issuing those permits.

[fly4fun]

Originally Posted by gadgets

It's my understanding that in Phoenix you need a special permit to drive in HOV lanes with hybrid and that they have stopped issuing those permits.

Yes they stopped issuing those permits. Why I do not know.

Let the Smarty in the HOV lane.

[Stocker]

Originally Posted by fly4fun

I wish Smart Cars were allowed in the HOV Lanes (Car Pool Lane) in the Phoenix AZ area.

Hybrids and motorcycles are allowed but why not Smart Cars?

Is this the same for all Citys.

For California.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING HYBRID VEHICLES:
Access for cleaner hybrid vehicles under this program was limited to the first 85,000 applicants. This limit has been reached and there are no further extensions of this program anticipated. Hybrid vehicles listed here are the only models that qualified and there will be no further updates to the hybrid vehicles listed below. This list is maintained for enforcement and reference purposes only and any new applications for HOV stickers for these vehicles will be rejected.


There's a list of qualifying vehicles for car pool lane use on the link.

[CruisingAZ]

AZ limited 10,000 special (cloud) plates for hybrid vechiles and they reached that number in June. Only the Honda and Toyota qualified and it is a test period. I agree that if they are going to let single occupant vehicles in the car pool lane (which they should not do, defeats purpose of lane) than it should be based on gas mileage not the fact that it is a hybrid. A big SUV hybrid will never get the mileage as our smarts will get even though they are not hybrids.

[rawlus®]

car pooling saves more gas than any hybrid ever will.
HOV lanes should seek to remove 2 or more additional cars from the roads by requiring 3 or more in a vehicle going to essentially the same place.
making allowances for M/C's, smarts, hybrids or anything else is pure silliness because unless they are also carrying 2 passengers, it's not high-occupancy.

100 extra hybrids on the road with 1 occupant in each is still 100 extra cars.
but 33 ford expeditions with 3 people in each is 66 less vehicles on the road.

[yuckmoon]

Originally Posted by fly4fun

I wish Smart Cars were allowed in the HOV Lanes (Car Pool Lane) in the Phoenix AZ area.

Hybrids and motorcycles are allowed but why not Smart Cars?

Is this the same for all Citys.

It depends on the Lane itself. Here in the DC area you can get on HOV-2 if there are 2 in your smart. However, the one next to me is HOV-3. So I guess I'll never be using it.

But I agree it would be nice to get on. Technically here you're not supposed to be on HOV with your Hybrid if it was made after 2006, but the cops don't seem to enforce that one. They just seem to be looking for the non-Hybrids with not enough passengers. Personally I don't think it's very fair that some of the Hybrids such as a Lexis or Ford Escape gets to drive on the HOV and I don't when my smart gets better gas mileage.