Study: HOV Lanes are a major cause of Global Warming

Newswire Release

May 11, 2007

From: The National Association of Pedestrians and Bicyclists

Study: HOV Lanes are a major cause of Global Warming

The spokesman for The National Association of Pedestrians and Bicyclists (NAPAB), said today that a new study of West Coast cities showed that High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes (HOV) are actually a major contributor to global warming. The research team studied 6 and 8 lane highways. Based on the fact that cars reach their maximum fuel efficiency at 50 to 58 miles per hour, the studies showed that during morning and evening rush hours, cars were well below this speed for approx. 6 hours everyday. Further exacerbating the problem, the cars in the HOV lanes were exceeding the speed limit causing more pollution by running inefficiently.

When questioned who the research team was, NAPAB said the group was IWUCS. No one in the room had heard of this group so they asked for a clarification.

"What does IWUCS stand for."

"The Iconoclatic Wing of the Union of Concerned Scientists. It's a split-off group."

Mouths dropped but the speaker pressed on.

"Come on, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. It's a good idea gone bad. Just like reduced flow toilets. Most of the time people flush those things twice because they don't do the job the first time. HOV lanes are another well intentioned idea gone horribly awry. The team found that in the major cities of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, L.A., and San Diego traffic was at a crawl for at least four hours a day. By freeing up another lane it was theorized that traffic would move 20 to 30 miles per hour faster. However, this does not mean that pollution would be 30X less, it would be more like 50 times, since the closer the car approaches 50 miles an hour, the fuel efficiency increases exponentially."

The crowd grew hostile. The message was lost midst the desire to attack the messenger. Someone shouted, "You sound like nattering NAPABs, talking about Ewoks and toilets."

It later turned out that hecklers from the Green Religion were strategically placed throughout the crowd. They were very good at creating chaos. If there is one law they follow, it is a variation on the Law of Entropy. "When a body of people or even a country is cut off from reason and logic, then any agenda can be implemented."

As the meeting dismissed in disarray, a member of IWUCS was overheard saying to the spokesman, "See, I told you."