RICHMOND–Privileges for Virginia hybrid drivers will likely be renewed, but officials say the special treatment won’t last forever.

The general assembly re-authorized legislation allowing drivers of specified hybrid vehicles to use the high occupancy vehicles lanes in the northern Virginia and Hampton Roads areas, as it’s done every year since the program began. The HOV lanes are usually reserved for drivers carrying at least one other passenger.

But even the patron of the re-authorization says the end is in sight for special privileges to hybrid drivers. Del. Tag Greason, R-Potomac Falls, said the explosion of clean fuel vehicles over the last several years is crowding HOV lanes to the point where they’ll eventually become irrelevant.

“At some point in the future, there will be so many clean fuel vehicles that we will have eliminated the benefit of having HOV,” Greason said. “That’s why we’re doing this one year at a time.”

Ever since 1999, drivers of clean fuel vehicles have been eligible to purchase a $25 special license plate that allows them to drive on HOV lanes. Driving a hybrid that qualifies according to the Department of Motor Vehicles is the only way to drive in an HOV lane without the required number of occupants, which varies from three to four people including the driver.

The program worked well until 2004, when applicants for the special plates skyrocketed, said Joan Morris, spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Transportation. In 2005, drivers purchased 8,882 of the special fuel plates, according to the DMV. The number had doubled two and ½ years later.

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