There is a Bill in the VA General Assembly extending the HOV exemption for two more years (HB 1014). This will allow Hybrids with the Clean Fuel plates (registered before July, 2006) to continue to drive in the HOV lanes on I95, I395 and I66. It passed in the House on 2/8 89 to 6. It has been refered to the Senate Transportation Committee. If you live in VA, please contact your state Senator and ask him to support the Bill.

To figure out who your Senator is follow the link below. It will tell you who he is, and provide a mechanism to send him a message. It'll only take a couple of minutes and it'll save hundreds of Hybrid drivers many hours of rush hour traffic.

http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/main?openform

 

I feel conflicted on this issue. I don't believe the HOV exemption should be extended to hybrids. It goes against the ideals behind the concept of HOV lanes. I believe HOV lanes should remain HOV.

I still use them while I can, but I wouldn't miss it if it was gone.

 

They should just renew the bill. Early adopters should be rewarded.

Besides, how many cars are we really talking about? Given the fact that you would have needed to have a Hybrid with the Clean Fuel plates (registered before July, 2006 in VA) and drive on I95, I395 and I66 during rush hour. If that is more than 100 cars I would be surprised.

 

100? lol... It's more than you think. When i do use the HOV on 395, i see about 30% of the cars being hybrid. i've never used, or needed the HOV on 66 on 95, so i can't say. But it's a lot.

 

A couple of years ago I saw a statistic that the number was a full 25%. Regardless of the number, the HOV lanes work and are not too congested, so throwing out Hybrids achieves nothing.

 

They should just renew the bill.

 

The Bill passed. The House modified the Bill to extend it for two years (until July, 2010) but the Senate Transportation Committee admended it back to one year (July, 2009). It passed the Senate unanamously.

 

The existing vehicles should be "grandfathered".

Many of the people who bought hybrids in N. Va. did so precisely because of the regulation that they could get the Clean Fuel plates and drive in the HOV lanes. The offer (to be allowed to drive in the HOV lanes) worked, as it convinced many people to invest thousands of dollars to buy cleaner vehicles. The stated purpose of the HOV lanes is to reduce emissions, not to encourage car pooling, and this was one of the ways that it worked.

In most areas, when a government changes a policy or regulation, the investments that were already made and the people who were already licensed under the previous policy are "grandfathered". That is usually considered to be "fair" to the people who made investments based on the previous policy. But the real reason for grandfather clauses is to enable future investment. Investment decisions require an assumption that the regulations will be stable for the life of the investment. Without that assumption, you really cannot make a lot of investment decisions. Governments historically have used grandfather clauses, not so much to be fair to prior investors, but to allow NEW investors to make that stable-policy assumption.

 

What a craze, you have to buy hybrid cars in order to be one of it, what about other car owners that dont have such kind of vehicles?
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I carpool everyday with three people -- that's three cars not on the road every day and that's three less cars putting out emissions. Rather than encouraging people only to buy hybrids to reduce emissions, they should be encouraging them to also take along another passenger. Otherwise, don't extend the exemption. There are way too many hybrids in the HOV lanes -- our carpool thinks at least 35-40%. They've clogged up the lanes for those who have doubled, tripled and quadrupled up in their cars. It's not fair. Most people who bought the hybrids bought them so they could use the HOV lane not so they would help clean up the air -- they don't deserve that much credit.