PukeGreen
Active Member
Motorcycles might be small, but from what I've read, they release a lot more pollution in to the air than your average car or truck. For some reason they were exempted from many of the emission control regulations applied to larger vehicles for many years. This may be changing now, by my anecdotal experience of walking near motorcycles bears this out, what with the clouds of choking blue smoke most seem to emit (and I won't even get into the noise pollution issue).
I've across a quote from the US EPA in numerous places stating that "motorcycles produce more harmful emissions than driving a car, or even a large SUV." but it seems tricky to find actual numbers to compare. There's some pretty coherent (though very old) discussion on the green-ness of motorcycles here, though: http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=260
The author concludes: "What still amazes me is how hard it was to find out the dirty truth about the motorized two-wheeled world. While I hate to spoil anyone's fun, I think folks should know that motorcycles are not green machines, but are rather, for our environment, obscene machines."
With that in mind, I'd be happier to allow scooters but not full-sized motorcyles into HOV lanes, under the logic that a major point of HOV lanes is to encourage more environmentally friendly forms of transportation.
I've across a quote from the US EPA in numerous places stating that "motorcycles produce more harmful emissions than driving a car, or even a large SUV." but it seems tricky to find actual numbers to compare. There's some pretty coherent (though very old) discussion on the green-ness of motorcycles here, though: http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=260
The author concludes: "What still amazes me is how hard it was to find out the dirty truth about the motorized two-wheeled world. While I hate to spoil anyone's fun, I think folks should know that motorcycles are not green machines, but are rather, for our environment, obscene machines."
With that in mind, I'd be happier to allow scooters but not full-sized motorcyles into HOV lanes, under the logic that a major point of HOV lanes is to encourage more environmentally friendly forms of transportation.