I got the lady that refused a ride in a Mercedes

because she wanted a personal ride down to Ballston, which is two exits down from Rosslyn. The Mercedes driver (and I've seen him twice this week already but I wasn't going to Rosslyn) just wasn't going to Ballston.

I drove today and that same lady got into my car. I recognized her instantly somehow even though I barely got a glimpse her that one morning last month.

She got in the car and didn't ask. I was like wow, she must be content with just going to the metro. Then five seconds pass and as I'm pulling out of the parking lot she asks. I just told her it was her lucky day since I'm driving towards Ballston. She sat like she wanted to have a conversation, leaning towards the driver side. Most people slouch or just sit straight.

I invoked my right to slug etiquette and looked ahead and didn't say anything. People that think having an etiquette is weird; be thankful it's there. If I had wanted to talk I'm sure I could have had a full conversation. But I chose not to, and turned up the Ipod on the stereo.

As we hit traffic about four exits from my exit; I started thinking about HOT Lanes. How the hell are HOT lanes supposed to work if you have a hybrid car, and you have three people? I would say that 99.5% of the people that utilize the HOV lanes are carpoolers or hybrid owners.

So the congestion to get onto the HOT lanes would be ridiculous, since it has to be done manually. So would you pay extra money to skip those lines? It's already an express lane. So you'd need an express lane for the express lane, right?

And do you get a refund if it's congested? So if you go slower than 55mph for more than two minutes do you get a partial or full refund. People won't be happy if they pay $20 to go 20 miles, only to wait in line because it's all congested where people are exiting.

And who gets the money when a cop gives you a ticket for enforcing HOV? Basically contractors are hired to collect the money for building it since they paid the state for the rights to. But the weird thing also is that the police would also enforce it as well right? The HOT Lanes company doesn't OWN the highway they control and maintain the access to the lanes right? Who is going to regulate the dynamic fees based on traffic? Who would question if it costs $2/mile to ride HOV b/c it's "congested" and it's subjective whether there is a lot of traffic or not.

This is stupid. All I know is I'm moving out of here if the HOT Lanes every do take place on 95.