I’ve long teased my kids that the only reason I had them was to be able to use the carpool lanes during rush hour. And while they’re a lifelong commitment for a minor convenience, it’s taken me a long time to feel comfortable using the carpool lanes with them as my passengers in the car. I wonder why that is, especially in our society where cops see broomsticks with fake heads and blow-up dolls as passengers.
Long before we had carpool lanes (aka high-occupancy vehicle–HOV–lanes) in my city, we used to have to travel down to Phoenix every other week while my son had his DOC band adjusted (for plagiocephaly). Phoenix, being a modern city, had carpool lanes
and I so wanted to use them but it seemed odd to declare my 8 month old as my 2nd passenger. He couldn’t be seen through the tinting in my van’s windows, so I could very easily have been pulled over wasting both my time and the police officer’s. I never used the carpool lane.
I guess I determined that my children were worthy carpool lane passengers when their heads could be seen through the back window. I have tinting, but you can still see shapes through it. It seemed too much of a risk for me until then. I’ve only received one ticket in my driving career and I don’t mind saying it was for hitting a parked car 6 weeks after I got my driver’s license (a well-deserved ticket that the police officer hesitantly wrote, as I recall). We all do stupid things when we’re 16, right? Like throw toilet paper at future husbands and their friends while driving? Yeah.
When do you feel kids become full-on carpool lane-worthy passengers? Is there a law in your state that dictates an age? Do you even use the carpool lane?
Rent a baby for carpooling in HOV lane 🙂 Just kidding
I wish we had HOV lane here in Dubai also. I guess it is one of those things still needs to be imported in this part of the world.
Anyways, going back to the article, it would be better to only count adults as HOV lanes are made to reduce the numbers of cars by asking people to commute together. Since anywayone who is not 16 or 18 can’t drive, you are not helping the trafic by carpooling with your own kids.
On the other side, if the car is full of kids and you can’t take other passengers with you and therefore can’t offer carpool and it is not your fault.
So the right way would be use HOV lane if you have 3+ adults unless you car is full, then 2 adults + kids 🙂
Guillaume
You guys make a compelling argument for counting newborns as carpool passengers!
We’re in the DC area and you bet that I count my kids as people and use the HOV lane for free (free for 3+ people in the car or pay with ez pass for less)! I had to take my car in for a 9 am service appointment last week and my GPS said 1 hour 23 minutes for the 18 mile drive 😮 took us 32 minutes using the HOV
I grew up in L.A. From earliest memory, my dad always rejoiced to have me in the car to use the carpool lane! This probably influenced my nonchalance toward counting kids as passengers. As long as the baby is born (not still in utero…) the baby counts. A human passenger is all that is required and they are that. 🙂 No guilt here!
Here in Atlanta, Ga, kids count from birth. No guilt here whatsoever.
If there’s an age minimum around here, I have never heard of it, and I would be fine explaining my ignorance to a police officer who happened to stop me for it, should that ever happen.
I understand why it makes some people feel guilty — the goal of carpool lanes is to encourage people to set up carpools amongst adults who would normally drive in separate vehicles, right? So ANYtime your passenger is someone who wouldn’t normally drive him-/herself in a separate vehicle (whether it’s your newborn baby, your teenager who doesn’t have her own car, or an elderly relative who no longer drives) you are taking advantage of a system intended to reduce the overall number of cars on the road.
But so what? The point is to reduce the number of nearly-empty vehicles on the road. From the day we are born, we take up one seat in a vehicle (or more, depending on the width of the car seat we are in!). Kids need to get from point A to point B too. Adults who are transporting folks who can’t drive for themselves (whether because they are too young, too old, can’t afford a car, etc) are providing a service to those dependent individuals — a service that reduces their ability to truly “carpool” (transport coworkers or other folks who might have driven themselves). As long as we’re doing our best to fill the car with people who need transportation, I think we deserve a carpool lane.
My first kid was a car screamer. I never felt one bit guilty using a carpool lane. I needed to keep moving and get to my destination, not sit in traffic and cry with him.
Here in WA, kids are people too. They count from birth in the HOV/carpool lanes. I think there was a lawsuit when carpool lanes first were opened to firmly make it . Not sure.
Maybe I’m shallow or something, but I have never felt one moment of guilt or worry about my kid being along with me to qualify for HOV lanes. Even as a baby, no guilt. I still had to support her by paying taxes. She takes up oxygen and space on this planet. We’re carpooling together.. Why would I even think she didn’t count as a 2nd passenger?
I also take it from the perspective that if we weren’t in the free-moving carpool lane, we’d be adding to the congestion within the regular gridlock. No benefit to anyone already coping with too much traffic for the roadways.
Uh, birth? lol Never have I felt any guilt whatsoever about counting my kids as occupants (and there’s no legal age restriction here either.) HOV away, fellow parents! >>
I remember in Hawaii when I was little, in the very late 70’s, my mom put a doll in a GM Love Seat http://pictures.historicimages.net/pictures/_2/1051/1050514.jpg to make us the minimum of 3 to go in the HOV. Certainly *I* qualified, as I was going to be late for school unless we left at 530 instead of 6 without our extra third ‘person’. I’m sure my mom’s glad we never got pulled over. I know a couple times I was told to “sit up!” when driving in to town with both parents, so the cops could see I was in there, too. So much for that extra sleep I was getting lying down in the back, lol.
I can remember my parents using them when I was a child and I was in the front seat, but I don’t exactly recall how old I was. It was on trips to see my grandparents in California. We don’t have any where I am, that I know of, but I’d prolly use one if I had both boys in the car.
Ha! I always felt guilty, too! We don’t have them here in Chicago (at least not that I’ve encountered), but we had a lot in SoCal. I’d only use them with my kids if I REALLY needed to, which was pretty much never since I’m usually pretty punctual and rarely had anywhere important to go. I’d also sometimes use one on the way to Disneyland because there was a really great carpool-lane exit. But other than that, nope.