Carpool privileges

Tonight I zipped up highway 85 to church for rehearsal. I was aiming to get there at 7 so I was on the road before carpool lane hours were over.

Out of habit, I just zipped into the carpool lane to pass the slow guy in front of me and it dawned on me: Oops! I don't have the kids in the car, my free ticket to the carpool lane! I looked around for a cop or CHP, especially the headlights zooming up in my rear view mirror. But it wasn't. Luckily it was 6:57, close enough to make an excuse in case I did get pulled over.

So as it turns out, Mr. Roadshow recently wrote about this in his column: mothers who get to use the carpool lane with their kids. True, my driving around Tobey and Eli, I'm not "saving a car" from the road. But when would they count as "people" as far as HOV is concerned? When they get their license? What if they're 16 but don't have a license yet? What if they have a license but don't have a car? What if I was driving around someone elderly who doesn't drive anymore? What if I'm driving around my mom who drives at home but not when she is unfamiliar with the roads like she is here? Since there's no way to determine whether a carpool is a "true" carpool, best to just count people, no matter how small (like in "Horton Hears a Who", is it obvious I'm a mom?).

He did make a good point that sometimes when a mom is driving around other kids, they might be saving that mom/parent a trip on the road, so there really is no telling if an extra person in the car is a true carpool.

It's kind of funny to see people get all worked up about it. In the meantime, I will enjoy this mommy privilege...so long as I remember whether I actually have the kids in the car or not.