Prius Envy

The congested California freeways can be very frustrating for drivers who are not able to take along a car pool buddy. Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic with a wide open carpool lane next to you can encourage traffic violations from even the most law-abiding citizen.

The State tried to take advantage of that unused carpool lane capacity by allowing single drivers in hybrid vehicles to use those lanes, provided they have a special state stickers. What's happened since then? (from OpinionJournal.com)

IRVINE, Calif.--In 2006, the California legislature authorized the state Department of Motor Vehicles to distribute 85,000 stickers to the owners of gasoline-electric hybrid cars. The stickers allow drivers to travel without passengers in all of the state's high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, which were formerly restricted to cars with two or more passengers. A report determined that California's HOV lanes were operating only at two-thirds of their capacity and not easing congestion as much as they could; the idea was to stimulate demand for hybrids and thus reduce the emissions of greenhouse pollutants.

The sticker distribution did exactly what it was supposed to do. People wanted to shave time off their commute, and the stickers drove up demand for hybrids for the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic hybrid (the only cars that qualified for stickers), so much so that the small Prius has been selling for over $30,000, and until recently had waiting lists. The Civic hybrid has carried a dealer "added premium" to the manufacturer's suggested list price of as much as $4,000 (with the hybrid Civic total price nearly $7,500 higher than the quoted price of a non-hybrid Civic).

But it seems that the hybrid HOV program, rather than suppressing automobile use, did the exact opposite: The program was wildly popular, and the HOV lanes became clogged. Californians began talking about "Prius backlash."

Then at the end of January, the DMV ran out of stickers, leaving more than 800 new Prius and Civic hybrid owners, who may have been enticed to buy their hybrids at premium prices inflated by sticker advantage and who applied for the stickers, without the right to drive alone in the state's HOV lanes.

Suckers. Look for a black market to develop in those stickers as people try to find a way to justify the extra bucks they spent on their fancy hybrids. We may also start hearing reports of stickers stolen from cars.

As for reducing traffic, I wonder how many people are driving alone in their hybrid and used to carpool with others? You know there have to be some folks out there who bought the hybrid so they could once again enjoy the freedom of being the only person in the car, and not have to worry about the schedules of others.

Like every government do-gooder program, there are unintended consequences.