Tax Incentives for Car-Pool Riders

Drivers for Highway Safety applauds Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) for proposing a bill that would give a tax deduction equal to 10% of employees’ wages for car-pooling or using public transit to and from their jobs.

Upon introducing his bill (AB 2859), Frizzelle said it will be a much better solution than the millions of extra dollars that would be spent to add diamond lanes on every California freeway and for the added CHP enforcement against violators that would be required. Drivers for Highway Safety totally agrees with Assemblyman Frizzelle.

We have continually fought against these dangerous lanes. If the Environmental Protection Agency does restrict the use of automobiles to meet federal clean-air standards in the large quantity of cars they claim will have to be taken off our freeways, the car-pool lanes will become obsolete just about the time these lanes are completed.

Common sense tells you that if Southern California is to meet these federal air-pollution standards, all lanes on our freeways will be needed to carry these riders. Now would be the time for our decision makers to take Frizzelle’s bill seriously instead of trying for a quick fix that will not work when the EPA gets serious and takes 10% to 20% of all cars off our highways at peak traffic periods.

JOE C. CATRON

President,

Drivers for Highway Safety