Monday, April 30, 2012

Carpool Stickers Arrive!

Earlier this month our license plates and clean air vehicle decals arrived from the State of California.  These decals allow us to use the High Occupancy ("carpool") lanes across California with only a single occupant.  We got really spoiled by having these stickers on our Toyota Prius from 2006 to 2011, but eventually the rules were updated and regular hybrid cars no longer qualify for this incentive.  Now only plug-in hybrids (Chevy Volt, new Prius Plug-in Hybrid), fully electric vehicles (Tesla, Nissan Leaf, BMW ActiveE, etc.), and certain other alternate fuel vehicles qualify.  The utility of these stickers depends a lot on individual driving patterns, but there are definitely times in rush hour during our normal commute when the carpool lane is going 20 miles per hour faster than the other lanes, and in such cases it is a huge time saver.



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