If Need Fails to Motivate Car-Pooling, Greed Just Might

Dear Street Smart:

As a behavioral psychologist and frequent freeway flier, I have developed an idea designed to increase the motivation of Californians to use the car-pool lane: the Diamond-Lane Lottery.

In view of the success of the state lottery, it is an idea whose time has come. The proposal is simply that drivers could buy a sticker (either monthly or yearly) that would make them eligible to be Diamond-Lane Lottery winners while driving in the car-pool lane.

Some type of detection or selection system could be developed to select daily winners on various California freeways--particularly at peak traffic hours. Winners would receive notification of prizes (cash, gasoline or coupons) or eligibility for prizes.

The proposal rests on the assumption that at least some additional proportion of California drivers will put aside the conveniences of driving alone in order to “win big” just by commuting back and forth to work. Hopefully, there would be additional incentive to use the often under-utilized diamond lane.

Dean D.E. Alexander, Diamond Bar Car-pool lane meets Big Spin? Once I stopped chuckling, I began to think maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. Hey, stranger things have happened.

Whoever thought Orange County would put in toll roads? Lo and behold, the county will probably soon be the toll-road capital of the universe, with five (count ‘em: five) toll roads on the drawing boards. The Diamond-Lane Lottery could work in much the same way. But instead of you paying to use the freeway, the freeway would be paying you.

I took the idea to the California Department of Transportation in Orange County. Once officials there stopped laughing, they suggested that the idea could best be addressed by the state Legislature. It’s a policy thing that requires action by state lawmakers, they said.

There could be legal hitches, of course. Lawyers have a funny way of taking the fun out of life. But the Legislature could probably figure some tricky way around any problems.

So there it is. If you like the idea, call your duly elected state representative. Demand the Diamond-Lane Lottery. Goodness knows, if it could reduce freeway congestion, it certainly would be welcome.