Today was a big day for me.

To go along with my guilt cleansing, super-nifty carbon credit certificate I bought the other day – LiveNeutral (my carbon credit vendor) also sent me a car decal!  

Woot!      Isn’t it "earth friendly" looking?  
———————————————->

Now I can show the world my 2005 Lincoln Aviator is carbon neutral – and drive without a care in the world.

All this for $45 – what a deal.

Now this slick sticker got me thinking……how come when I’m driving my non-polluting, carbon free Aviator with my sticker on it, I can’t drive in the diamond lane like those polluting, non-carbon free Prius’ do?

That’s right, if you didn’t already know – the legislature passed a bill a couple of years back that allows drivers of hybrids (actually, narrowed down to mostly the Toyota Prius and a couple others) to get their own cool sticker that lets them drive in the diamond lane.

You can tell this sticker is government issued, because it’s an ugly yellow without much style.

The DMV even has a webpage giving you all the details about this snazzy law.

But, again, what’s the deal here?  My Aviator is carbon neutral and according to the DriveNeutral "CO2 Calculator" a 2007 Toyota Prius emits 4,229 pounds of carbon per year (I’ve attached a printout on the bottom of this post) and they want $15 bucks to give this polluter neutrality.

Let’s see —- I’m neutral and a Prius pollutes thousands of pounds of carbon per year, and they get to drive in the diamond lane – and I can’t!  What’s up with that?

That’s completely unfair.  This law needs to be changed!

Anyone know a legislator willing to balance this inequity?  :-)

————-  more to come………………

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.