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Comment by DigiDigiorno | Hacker News Reader

Floridian here, what do you mean they kicked Priuses out of the carpool lane?

In my experience, High Occupancy Vehicle lanes restrict usage based on the highness of the occupancy of the vehicle... What does brand have to do with this?

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Not a Californian, but I believe there used to be a deal where in some places a more efficient vehicle would be allowed in the carpool lane regardless of the number of occupants.

My guess is that previously a Prius (or similar hybrid) qualified for the HOV lane regardless of how many passengers. The intuition is that because they are so fuel efficient, it's similar to carpooling.

California let Priuses in to the carpool lanes for awhile with a "Carpool OK" sticker I think due to their reduced emissions. BEVs later got the same stickers but they were either limited in number and/or eventually were phased out.

For me, I'd always just risk the fine for the 6-7 years I was down in the Bay Area. It never happened and I got hours or possibly whole days of my life back.

Some places incentivize low emissions vehicles by giving them access to high occupancy lanes.

Former new yorker here, but ev-hybrids were (maybe still are?) allowed in carpool lanes even if they were only carrying the driver. When I lived there priuses were by far the biggest population of hybrids or evs

Virginia was similar... when hybrids first arrived, they were allowed special tags to use HOV lanes without the occupants. As they became common-place, that exemption was removed.

To boost adoption, hybrids and EVs were allowed into the HOV lanes (without high-occupancy passengers).

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