In the carpool lane, does baby make two?
Posted on June 22nd, 2008 – 7:22 PMBy Roadguy
Here’s my column from the Sunday paper. If you’ve already read it elsewhere, please skip on down to the comments below. Thanks.
Alert reader Matthew from Hopkins has a question:
If I’m driving and my only passenger is my 4-month-old daughter, are we qualified to use the carpool lane? She is, after all, a second person in the car, albeit not a full-sized one.
To quote Dr. Seuss, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
Those aren’t the exact words that the Federal Highway Administration uses in its rules for high-occupancy vehicle lanes, but that’s the basic idea, and Todd Kramascz, a supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, says the state’s policy aligns with the federal one.
There is one risk: Roadguy knows at least one dad who has been pulled over in the Interstate 394 carpool/toll lane by an officer who couldn’t see the second, much smaller person. No ticket was issued, but Matthew might want to give his kid a very large baby bonnet to improve her visibility.
TAKE HIM OUT TO THE BALLPARK
Alert reader Elbert called the other day from Andover because he’d like to take the bus to Twins games. With the price of gas what it is, he said, why couldn’t there be park-and-ride service like there is for the State Fair?
Roadguy wishes he could quote Dr. Seuss again, but Dr. Seuss didn’t write much about the laws of supply and demand, so instead I turned to Metro Transit’s Bob Gibbons.
Gibbons said his agency provides park-and-ride buses when the Twins have postseason play and the Dome is packed. But a regular-season game, with an ordinary attendance of, say, 20,000, simply wouldn’t generate enough rides, he said.
Southwest Transit used to provide special service to some Twins games, but that was cut this year for budgetary reasons. However, the agency’s website does have a page explaining how you can take its regularly scheduled buses to games during the week. You just have to hope that the night games don’t go into extra innings — the last buses out are at 9:20 and 10:15 p.m.
Of course, this is of little help to Elbert, who is unlikely to drive 33 miles from Andover to the southwest suburbs just to catch the bus.
THE GLBLWMR SPEAKS
The other day, Roadguy got an e-mail from the owner of the much-discussed GLBLWMR license plate. The guy, named Jeremey, confirmed that the letters do indeed mean “global warmer.” He even sent a photo of the plate surrounded, appropriately enough, by snow.
27 Responses to "In the carpool lane, does baby make two?"
Baby might make two to allow a parent to use the HOV lane according to the letter of the law, but I would contend that it doesn’t align with the “spirit” of the law, which is to reduce the number of drivers of the road.
That said, I’m not going to be the one petitioning for a change… I’d probably take advantage of this loophole myself if I were in the same situation.
Just to stir up some controversy - the better question would be if you get to take the carpool lane if you’re pregnant? Does it matter which side of the political spectrum you’re on?
Have fun with that one people.
State Patrol would then have to be issued pregnancy test kits.
Political spectrum? I was thinking religious. 
Three religious persons are discussing when life begins.
The Catholic says, “Life begins at the moment of conception.”
The Jew says, “Life begins at the moment of birth.”
The Lutheran says, “You’re both wrong. Life begins when the last kid leaves and the dog dies!”
“I would contend that it doesn’t align with the “spirit” of the law, which is to reduce the number of drivers of the road.”
Would a child be more or less in line with the spirit of the law than, say, the ‘toll’ option that says: if you have money, you don’t have to deal with traffic?
its not “if” you have money, its if you want to spend it foolishly to deal with traffic. I am sure Prof S would be the first to spend a dollar to run granny and the green crowd out of his selfish way, because you know, time is money.;)
Probably better not to drive pregnant. Don’t want junior’s first words to be, “Get the %$#@ outta the way, buddy!”
Maybe they can sell videos or CD’s “Baby road-rage.”
Ps, life begins at quittin’ time!
I’m not sure that it’s a loophole to allow children to count towards your HOV/HOT count. I imagine it is mostly a matter of ease of enforcement.
Counting the number of heads in a vehicle certainly must be easier than attempting to ascertain the age of a ‘qualified passenger’.
In terms of car pooling reducing traffic, a baby is no different from any other carless passenger who would never be driving on the road since they don’t own a car.
Good point about the pro choice/life issue.
One of my coworkers was pulled over for this a few weeks ago. The cop told her is it was illegal. The kids didn’t count as car-poolers. But he didn’t give her a ticket.
I take the car pool lane with my son, as far as im concerned he counts until a ticket says otherwise.
If I sell my car today and carpooled, should my driver be ticketed since I would be no different than a carless passenger?
I personally think counting babies is bogus, but it IS an HOV (high occupancy vehicle)lane, not a “carpool” lane.
This doesn’t bother me as much as the 40+% of people using the lane sans ANY passengers. Hopefully they will crack down on this once the tolls are in effect.
I’m very happy to see that there isn’t a hundred posts calling for the end of HOV and/or toll lanes. Roadguy blog makes one smarter, I guess.
Morg says: “I personally think counting babies is bogus, but it IS an HOV (high occupancy vehicle)lane, not a “carpool” lane.”
The HOV lanes are nothing more than government dictated socialism. Government at it’s worst. We already paid for these lanes. Why make anyone pay more?
What’s the requirement for the passengers: They must be employed? They must be employed within a radius of the same location as the driver?
Or perhaps they must be employed in the same hours / same day as the driver?
Do you understand how lacking in logic, your thought is?
All I can say say is that sometime, us adults have to get out of high school (which I happend to escaped to the university when I was 16) and live in an Adult World, with Adult Laws.
I don’t think it will happen. Not atleast for the next 2000 years!
I guess I wrote too soon. . .
News Flash: The world does not revolve around the personal automobile.
We can all agree that the cars driven on highways are going to some destination, but if we keep building roads we eventually run out of destinations, and our cities are all roads.
Besides, if you don’t want to pay the toll, don’t, just take the regular highway for free. Nobody is forcing you to take the toll lane.
A study conducted for MNDOT concluded, among other things, “The data suggests that the Twin Cities would more efficiently process traffic now and in
the future (as projected by the current regional travel model) if the HOV lanes were opened to all traffic.” This conclusion coincides with those from studies conducted in other states, namely, that opening HOV lanes to all traffic results in the more efficient flow in traffic.
So, based on these comments, if I ride with my wife on an errand that only one of us needs to go on, we shouldn’t use the HOV lanes?
MnBikeCommuter - I don’t like associating religion with political views and questions. Probably because I go to a VERY liberal Evangelical church. And I mean VERY liberal.
Spuzz - Since you mention it, my co-workers who live on the west side swear by MnPass (and have paid as much as $9.00 toll) so they can get into the office faster. Their justification - the time-money balance made it worth it. When you bill your time for money, yes, time is a factor.
I seem to recall a few years ago a pregnant woman in Phoenix who argued that she should be able to take the HOV lane because her unborn baby counted as a second passenger. The court rejected her argument because it concluded that the purpose of the HOV lane is to fill empty space in a car with additional passengers. A fetus doesn’t take up an extra seat in a car, but an infant does if you are complying with the law and using an infant seat. Thus, a baby should count as an occupant for purposes of the HOV lane.
Matty,
I don’t much like the idea of HOT lanes. HOV lanes, maybe, but HOT lanes are today’s politically correct way to expand freeways.
We really need to get away from this notion that bigger is always better. We need to travel smarter and that means a lot more investment in public transportation.
Prof S, I still think its a foolish waste of money. As much as $9.00 per toll (one-way), $18.00/day, $90/week, Over $4000/year. Holy crap! Just because time is money? To each their own…
It is my understanding that the $9.00 day was in the middle of a snowstorm. It took an hour to get in from the west metro. They bill out at far more than $9.00 an hour, so it made complete financial sense. In fact, it would have been REALLY expensive not to.
I roll down the HOV lane with my 10 month old EVERY afternoon on the way home from work and never have gotten pulled over for it. If they ever do, I doubt they will give me a ticket for it. If they did, I would be GUARANTEED to argue it in front of a judge. The whole point of an HOV lane is to reward faster commute times to those with multiple people in a car, thereby encouraging people to have multiple people in their car. Without sounding like a greedy sap, my child is a person, so I should get the reward of a faster commute if I have her in my car.
In line with the original intent of the HOV lanes? Nope.
Worth spending the time and money to stop? Nope.
Go after the jerks who are speeding along alone in the lanes instead.
The idea of the HOV lanes is to reward people who carpool to work, taking 2 or 3 other cars off the road, not people who happen to be able to use the lanes after picking junior up from daycare.
That said, I think the notion of carpool lanes are ridiculous. If they are built separately, a la 394, they are a little easier to stomach, but when you take away a general traffic lane for a select few, I have problems.
To set aside a third of 35W’s capacity for the tiny percentage of commuters who work downtown, and more importantly, who are actually able to carpool is beyond absurd. However, if I’m not mistaken, the federal funds we received to expand 35 were contingent upon having the carpool lane. Were the carpool lane not there, we would still be toiling along on only two lanes each way. Pick your poison.
Morg, why are motorcycles allowed in the HOV lane? I have seen 2 on a motorcycle, but not 3.
