Sound about right!!
A car carrying a doctor, a tradesman, company rep etc is held up, costing time and money, whilst a couple on their way to the shopping centre have a trouble free ride.
Does a hease quailfy or has the passenger got to be living?

There they go again, thugs and bullies at the transport department, throwing their weight about, threatening lone drivers if they used these lanes, with penalty points and fines. We the drivers have already PAID for the roads in the first place, OUR TAXES still pay for them to this day, and yet only a small proportion of these taxes get ploughed back into the road system. Why not spend the money improving the infrastructure, and ploughing more money into public transport. If people had an alternative, they wouldn't use their cars so much. Britain has one of the lowest per head of population in western Europe for car ownership, yet the highest in car use, and lowest for use of public transport. This roughly translated means that other countries car drivers still use public transport a lot DESPITE having a car at home.

Will lone motorcyclists be able to use these lanes? As far as I can make out motorcycles contribute very little, if indeed anything, to congestion generally and as such should be allowed to use them.

I also note that similar lanes in the US have resulted in around a 50% increase in injury-causing collisions, so obviously a great idea....NOT!

Just another ploy by Labour to look good to someone, I cannot think who?

A waste of time, money and police efforts to achieve what?

Just waht will they think of next to confuse the already bewildered drivers of today.

Government get Billions from taxation on motorists, from petrol to roadfund, most of which the government spends on lame duck enterprises, that achieve nothing.

OH! dear, what ever next, after the motoray buis lane (a failuer) we have the two people plus lane, perhapse we could have a motorcycle lane and a school bus lane and a lane for grannies etc.

Atleast the motorways would be bigger, with even more confusion.

Just the thin end of a very big wedge.. Be prepared!!

Surely their must be a get out clause on the insurance incase you have a accident with passengers in your car "Using it to ferry people to and from work"? This could be a very iffy position to put a car owner into?? Incase of a accident ? Could you be opening yourself up to a insurance claim in a event of a accident and some of your passengers get hurt?? And it was your fault ?? Or if one of them actually died in a accident?? You could be charged with murder/driving without due care Ect????? This is yet another ploy by the government because they have wasted the money that should have been spent on roads on other things like quangos and wars Ect ...

Dow e have to copy everything America does? America has these lanes BUT they also have about 5 more next to the shared lane. If we are to copy them lets widen the roads, put in more lanes like they do also.

What a waste of money! Spend money re-establishing a good railway network, get lorries off the motorways, spend money improving public transport. Then you will reduce congestion. Car sharing is fraught with problems - you might have to go out of your way to pick someone up; you might have to work late and not be able to take them home; do they pay you (will cause insurance problems). I am absolutely sick to death of out of touch politicians thinking up hare-brained schemes which are vastly expensive and just plain daft. (They, of course, will be able to use the car-share lane because they all have chauffeurs!)

And reducing the road capacity will reduce congestion how exactly?

Oh, it won't, but that isn't the real intention is it. Like all the bus lanes and other "road improvements" the real purpose is to take cause congestion so they can justify yet another swipe at the pockets of those who are least likely to protest because they're too busy earning a living...

I travel the M62, West to East, at least once per week at peak times in the morning. My journey is from Ramsbottom to Wetherby where one of my clients have their office. My journey is on a different day each week, so is not readily predictable in advance. There is no viable public transport option, so I have no choice but to use my car.

I would willing share, but where am I going to find anybody who has the same irregular transport requirements as myself? Car sharing may work for some, but not for all. There are some for whom it is just not practical, most of whom are business travellers like myself.

Now the motorist is to be penalised by another decison based on so called facts, rather than a proven need. I doubt journey times will be reduced by as much as predicted, but even more cross-lane traffic movements, to access and leave the pool lane, will increase congestion even more.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's I worked in the USA. The Interstate 5 in CA has car pool lanes in several places and one would often be sitting in a queue in another lane while the pool lane was completely empty. Pool lanes do not change the driving habits of many people, those who are so inclined to share probably already do so. However, for a great percentage sharing is probably not an option.

"The initiative could shave eight minutes off rush-hour journeys, according to the Highways Agency"

Wow a whole eight minutes longer in bed eh? Well worth the millions.

PS Time to invest in blowup dolls?

I'll have to dig out my inflatable doll and dress her up.
It'll be good to ride her..ride with her again

Why can I not use the road that I have paid for?

I is bad enough having the dam bus lanes empty and a traffic jam for two miles

And next it will be road charges we already pay road charges to the gov and get very little in return

Can we sue this Gov under the trade descriptions act or get them for theft and misappropriation of our money

I nearly always have somebody with me when I am driving, but this is just lunacy. How the **** can we reduce congestion by taking a lane of a motorway? What a moron! Please remember that resistance is not futile and the law is there to be challenged if there is any attempt to make this law then I suggest you challenge it in any way you see fit.

This is not new we have had care share lanes and priority bus lanes fo a number of years. If public transport was used more then this would also help, unless fares in the Uk have become as costly ha sthey have here for services that can't run on time, or provide clen and modern rolling stock. Privately owned public transport is so highly subsdised, and they run at a ' Bottom Line ' proffit at any cost there only motive and only answerable to the 'Share Holders" not primarily the commuters ( Paying Patrons ).

These lanes do not work in the United States. They do not work any where I have been. They are not going to work in Manchester. You will still have crowded, congested lanes and one almost empty.

I don't know if this will reduce congestion. I hope it will. But more importantly, if it encourages two lone drivers to share, then it is reducing carbon dioxide emissions and alleviating climate change. Surely that's a good thing - for the people in the car share lane and those that aren't?

We have recently had the (mis)fortune of a local highway being widened for a high occupancy lane. Whilst the idea is great the implementation here is sadly not. You can only enter/ exit these lanes at certain points, which means that if some idiot is only doing 80kmh, you cannot get past until the next open point. Also if someone misses their exit they then have to wait for the next one, get off the highway and come back, thus loosing anytime they may haved saved in the first place. These lanes are also difficult to enter at rush hour as you have to enter at the speed of the traffic in the lane or risk getting rear ended. As most lanes are crawling along this is not only dangerous but difficult.
Great Idea but not thought through.

At long last someone has realised that a car with 2 people in it is twice as efficient as 2 cars with one person in each, using half as much fuel, producing half as much C02, and importantly - taking up half as much road space. Incenitvising more people to share cars is great and in Manchester we have our own fantastic scheme www.CarShareGM.com - helping peole find others travelling the same way so they can share the journey. I'm all for it!!

Ah yes .....this is the proposal which will allow parents on the school run, retired people out for a nice drive, Sir ??^~Whoever??^TM and their chauffer not having to be delayed by those pesky sorts who have to work for a living.

After all if sale reps (trying to obtain valuable orders to keep others in work), emergency repair engineers, delivery drivers, and people who are unfortunate not to live near their colleagues cant share then it is their own fault. Hmmm

Could this be yet scheme which looks interesting on the surface but turns out to be ill conceived when you look a little deeper?.

Now whatever happened to the previous brainwave of marching yobs to a cash bank to collect a fixed penalty?, cant wait for the next one.

if you lot spent as much time writing to your MPs about this as you do bitching on here maybe something would happen that you actually agreed with. they work for us and we put them where they are so start writing people.

"they work for us !" Yeah right - they work for themselves only. Every now and then you get an independent like Martin Bell who is a genuine person - the rest are tied to a party and do as the whips says whilst lining their own pockets.
if this was a true democracy - and in this age of computers etc - every tax payer should be given a voting chip on a card he could put into a machine and vote once a week on issues like this.......I believe years ago this government promised us all a referendum on the EU.