so is the high occupancy lane considered the passing/fast lane too?

i was in it tonight doing 5mph over and be-boping to the oldies when i began to notice the HOV lane nazis were flashing thier lights at me ala the "fast lane".

i got over to let them pass, but i had to merge into the "fast lane" to get to the middle lane. it happened several times. that hardly seems safe.....

sup with that?


and while i'm sitting on this pot, what's with people using the HOV lane with one adult and one infant etc. in the car? isn't the idea to motivate drivers who would otherwise be in thier own cars, to carpool?

wait, that's what was doing.......

Infants are people too you know. Do you have kids?

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

I think that about sums it up.

The point of the HOV lane is to reward carpoolers with a faster lane. If you're not going faster than the rest of the traffic it defeats the purpose.

see, there's where i guess i'm confused. i thought the purpose of the HOV lane was to allow carpoolers less conjestion and therefore an expeditious commute. i did'nt know it was a speed thing too. so how fast should i have been going?

Kuan, my original complaint was in that, given that the purpose of the HOV lane was to provide carpoolers with less conjestive travel, how is carrying children removing the volume of vehicles on the highway?

then i realized that i was in the HOV lane only because i had my kids in the car.......and thus the emoticon

The reason you use the HOV lane with kids in the car is so you don't go crazy. Simple enough reason to me.

Around here the HOV lanes are severly underused. We should open them up going downtown in the morning and open them up going the other way coming home in the evening.

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

I hear ya! i put a DVD player in the 4runner to keep them occupied. it took them 1 hour to start with the bickering again. the conflict? which DVD do we watch now?

whats worse are th e places that allow Hybrid drives to drive alone in the HOV............

Around here all they have to do is see you enter the HOV lane without the proper number of riders and they can bust you.............

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

it irks the hell out of me to be behind someone in the HOV lane who is not moving noticably faster than traffic.

if you're gonna drive at the speed of traffic, JOIN IT.
the purpose of the HOV lane is to reward those with more than one person in the car with a more expeditious drive. if you aren't contributing to that drive join the traffic.

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'O=00=O'
bmw 2002.
long live the legend

Friends + Carpool buddies + HOV lane = Autobahn

Me + 300D + 2 or more people = Italian Tune-Up

Whats really irritating is that there are people who rent a full size U-Haul or a Ryder truck, and because they have 2 people, cruise in the HOV lane, going 5 over... and holding up traffic for miles :wtf:

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Jason

00 Subaru Legacy (fun wagon)
96 Nissan Sentra (disavowed)
82 300SD (garage queen, will run again hopefully)
87 300DT (Gone: 10/15/2010)

That question has puzzled me too. It doesn't make any sense. But hey, my wife is going to have a baby soon so I'll be that annoying car in the HOV lane going 5 under looking in the rearview to make sure everythings ok in the back seat. I'll also suddenly speed up if there is any opportunity to pass me. I may even get a lexus rx. ok I'm joking except for the baby part.

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I'd rather argue against a hundred idiots, than have one agree with me. — Winston Churchill

My thoughts exactly. Key item here for me is traffic speed. I can understand going 5 over the speed limit if the rest of traffic is going 45 or slower, otherwise might as well join the traffic anyway.

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1990 190e 2.6 - The only one I can really call "My Car".

1987 190e 2.3 - The donor car's up and running, only mods are Euros and a Sony headunit. My Dad's runabout now.

1990 300e 2.6 - The parents' ride.

Can't you just move over if there is someone coming quickly behind you? Is your ego too big even for this little gesture? There is too much traffic in the world now to simply get out on the road and zone out.

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The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!

Good point, but in some places (Southern California), most of the HOV lanes are separated from the regular lanes with the double-yellow lines; merging in/out is supposed to only occur at certain points, otherwise you could get pulled over.

__________________
1990 190e 2.6 - The only one I can really call "My Car".

1987 190e 2.3 - The donor car's up and running, only mods are Euros and a Sony headunit. My Dad's runabout now.

1990 300e 2.6 - The parents' ride.

This might be the ONLY time I agree with you..................

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

No, infants are not people yet -- certainly not in the sense of productive members of society.

The idea of the HOV lane is to get people *who would otherwise be driving individual cars* to combine their commute into *one* car. I've yet to see the infant that could drive itself to work. (Or that *had* any kind of work, for that matter.)

So if you have nothing but an infant in the car, you should be out there in the regular lanes, cursing the traffic (partly caused by the foolish human insistence on overbreeding our habitat) like the rest of us.

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-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino