Yesterday the Government announced that Britain's first car share lane will open next year on the M62 between Bradford and Leeds. Any vehicle containing more than one occupant (or a very convincing inflatable doll) will be able to use the lane, shaving eight minutes off a typical morning commute. Research suggests that only one in every six vehicles using this stretch of motorway during peak hours currently contain two or more occupants. They'll be in for a treat next year, then, speeding past all the lonely singletons queued nose to tail in the bog-standard lanes alongside. I do hope those evil individuals are feeling appropriately guilty as they commute passengerless to work, murdering the planet as they do so.
 They've had carpool lanes in other countries for some time. In California, for example, they're sometimes called "diamond lanes" (which is the only reason I stopped to take this photograph, honest). As you can see, this diamond lane in San Francisco is a huge success, completely empty of any traffic whatsoever. Maybe that's not surprising in a country where only 7% of vehicles have multi-person occupancy, or maybe it was just a very quiet Sunday afternoon. Whatever the case, carpool lanes haven't been universally popular in the States, seen by some as a chronic waste of valuable roadspace and by others as creating new forms of risk and congestion.
Our Transport Secretary, Darling, says that car share lanes are "a sensible measure to try and encourage people where they can to share lifts, especially if they're going to work maybe in the same place or same area." But I have my doubts as to just how feasible car-sharing really is.
The major flaw with car sharing is surely the unpredictability of most people's journeys. It's great if you always go into work at eight and always return on the dot of five, but most of us don't lead such rigid lives. What if one day you want to go into work early, or divert along the way to pick up a prescription or some dry cleaning? And how much time would you end up wasting each month if your carshare partner always finished work half an hour after you, or decided to stay late one night to complete an urgent project. And what about spontaneous leisure journeys, or shopping trips? Even by using a carpooling website it's still nigh impossible to find the perfect partner whose journey requirements perfectly match your own. Car share lanes are likely to prove too impractical for the majority of road users, benefitting only those who already drive around accompanied by friends or family. The rest of Britain's solo drivers are unlikely to be able to change their existing behaviour, even if they'd like to.
And anyway, the Department of Transport already has a fully-trialled 100%-effective road congestion solution whereby several road passengers share the same vehicle. It's called a bus. A few more of those running regularly and reliably around the country and we might be able to cut road congestion without spending the odd £2½million on one mile of new road.
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