If you like a big hog of a vehicle like a Cadillac Escalade, how about a little bump from the state of California to transform this mondo cruiser into an environmental symbol?
In an effort to spur so-called fuel-efficient vehicles, California has ventured into a strange trade-off involving fuel efficiency, carpool lanes, black markets and inflated resale values.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, February 06, 2008 Home Edition Highway 1 Part G Page 2 Features Desk 2 inches; 70 words Type of Material: Correction
Clean-air stickers: A Jan. 24 article about clean-air stickers incorrectly reported the sequence of state programs that allows single drivers in certain vehicles to use carpool lanes. In fact, the alternative-fuel program came before the hybrid-vehicle program. The story also said the state initially granted 60,000 permits for hybrid vehicles in 2006 and then added 25,000 in 2007. The program actually began with 75,000 permits, and 10,000 were added later.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, February 06, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 75 words Type of Material: Correction
Clean-air stickers: An article about clean-air stickers in the Jan. 24 Highway 1 section incorrectly reported the chronology of state programs that allow single drivers in certain vehicles to use carpool lanes. In fact, the alternative-fuel program came before the hybrid-vehicle program. The article also said the state initially granted 60,000 permits for hybrid vehicles in 2006 and then added 25,000 in 2007. The program actually began with 75,000 permits, and 10,000 were added later.
You might call this the legal realm of bizarre consequences -- intended or not -- that began when the Legislature decided to allow certain vehicles to use carpool lanes even when the car or truck is carrying only the driver.
As Southern California commuters know, the Legislature granted certain hybrid owners yellow stickers -- known as clean-air stickers -- for approved vehicles, giving them unlimited carpool-lane privileges. Obviously, that's a monumental convenience in a city like Los Angeles, where traffic often crawls at 25 mph or less.
The law initially granted this privilege to the Toyota Prius and two hybrids from Honda.
The Legislature, acting through the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Air Resources Board, wanted to encourage people to buy more environmentally friendly vehicles.
At first, the state issued 60,000 of these stickers, which were quickly claimed. It set up a waiting list for a new batch and then last year added an additional 25,000 of them, said DMV spokesman Armando Botello. The stickers ran out last year. Want to be put on a waiting list? There isn't a waiting list any longer.
Guess what happened then: Stickers started turning up on the black market. DMV investigators found one case of these stickers being auctioned on EBay. What's nice about these stickers is that they don't expire until 2011, even when the car is sold.
As a result, a Prius with carpool-lane stickers on it now is worth $2,000 to $4,000 more than a Prius without the sticker, according to Jesse Toprak, a senior analyst with the car valuation service Edmunds.com.
"If the goal is to have more green cars with low emissions, it achieved the goal," Toprak said. "It made it easier to deal with the atrocious L.A. traffic. [But] a lot of people I know with these stickers aren't green environmentalists. They just want to get home quicker."
Another funny thing happened: The state agreed to replace any lost or damaged stickers, and so far 11,000 of those replacement stickers have gone out the door.
Exactly how do you lose a sticker that won't come off a bumper?
