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California surprisingly announced Wednesday they would immediately allow hybrid vehicles getting over 45 MPG to drive solo in carpool lanes. All you need to do is apply for a special sticker(4 actually ) for $8, but there's an addon that nobody can really explain that requires all California drivers in the 9 bay area counties to also pay $40 to buy a Fas Trak transponder, whether they commute over bridges or not. The claim was that if they didn't do that, allowing solo hybrids into carpool lanes would cost the state revenue in bridge tolls.
So anybody wanting to get the sticker has to include a receipt proving they paid for Fastrak. So people started complaining "I don't go anywhere near a bridge, why do I have to pay for that?" So then it was explained that the money is a "deposit" and if you later say move out of the 9 counties(people in LA for example don't have to buy Fastrak), your money will be refunded.
Well as you can imagine, it didn't take people long to figure out the loophole in this stupid system. There are websites, news reporters, and local papers, all explaining that all you have to do is, pay the 40 bucks, mail off the receipt, and as soon as you get your stickers, return the transponder and get your 40 bucks back. The state has in fact admitted that as far as they nothing there is absolutely nothing in their rules to prevent that.
So why in hell don't they just remove the Fastrak requirement altogether and let people get stickers for 8 bucks?
Sometimes this state just makes me nuts, how can they take 7 months to come up with a plan that has such an obvious loophole and nobody in charge ever noticed it?
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Last edited by Russ Smith; August 12th, 2005 at 04:43 PM.
The craziest thing is the math on it. They were explaining this morning on radio over 75% of the population in California is NOT in the 9 bay area counties that have this requirement. There's only going to be 75K stickers issued, so you start off by assuming only ~ 29,000 people will get stickers that live in those counties. Then using some other stats they came up with a number more like 2500 people who are likely to currently be commuting over bridges.
The Fastrak provision was written assuming that ALL 75000 stickers would be issued to people who paid tolls daily and thus they'd lost 3 bucks a day from 75000 cars, in reality it's more like 3 bucks a day from 2500 cars.
Sometimes I'm embarassed to live in California, I can't believe nobody in charge ever bothered to question if it seemed unlikely that EVERY sticker issued would go to someone who paid tolls, it's such an obvious attempt to increase revenues by making people pay a toll they wouldn't otherwise pay but nobody in charge figured that out?
....There's only going to be 75K stickers issued, so you start off by assuming only ~ 29,000 people will get stickers that live in those counties. ....
I don't know what the postal government rates are...but assuming that 40,000 is gonna get a refund...thats another expense...actually double because the state has to mail the refund also...
Out of those 75,000 vehicles how many are hybrids? 12?
No they're all hybrids. Only hybrids that get over 45MPG qualify to get this sticker.
It's nuts, there aren't currently 75K registered hybrids in the state of California that qualify, I think they said it's just over 50K right now but don't quote me on that one. So they passed a law that assumed they were losing revenue from 75K vehicles, when there never were 75K of them on the roads in the first place, let alone all paying tolls on Bay area bridges. KLLC radio in SF says they were told by "an expert" that the number is actually quite possibly as low as 2000 cars that will actually avoid paying tolls if they're allowed to use the carpool lane as a solo hybrid driver. So that's 6000 dollars a day in lost revenue assuming 3 bucks a toll. Sure it adds up as but as has been pointed out the simple cost of mailing out transponders and then having to take all the returns in (labor and postage) alone makes it pretty obvious that it's a silly plan.
It's blatantly obvious that this is a revenue grab and that the powers that be either looked the other way, or were too stupid to notice it.
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Last edited by Russ Smith; August 12th, 2005 at 04:42 PM.
Hybrids are starting to get a lot more popular as the performance improves.
A friend has a small hybrid SUV and other than the really good city gas milage and a lack of engine noise it is the same as the non hybrid version.
I agree, I like Hybrids. I just think the way California is enacting this is comical, they're clearly trying to force people who don't use toll bridges to pay for toll bridges so they can increase revenues. ANd they're using a completely made up premise about how much revenue they're going to lose, to justify this.
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