EDITORIAL HYBRID HULLABALOO CAR-POOL LANE INCENTIVE MAKES SENSE RIGHT NOW.

CALIFORNIA drivers who own hybrid vehicles have finally won the right to apply for Department of Motor Vehicles placards allowing them to drive in freeway car-pool lanes even if there are no passengers.

They had been waiting since January, when a state law allowing the shift went into affect. It was held up because it needed federal approval since the federal government helps pay for highways. California's industrious representatives in Washington, D.C., tucked the authorization into the $286 billion transportation bill that the president signed last week.

The news caused many people to howl in protest. Car-pool lanes were created to get cars off the roads by encouraging ride sharing, they rightly noted. Allowing solo drivers inside the double yellow lines - even drivers in clean hybrid cars that combine gas and electric motors - would defeat the purpose.

Technically, this is true. But the state's high-occupancy-vehicle lanes have a larger purpose, and that is to encourage good motoring behavior. Pushing a market for vehicles that have ultra-low pollution levels - to make air cleaner for all Californians, not to mention saving drivers on gas bills - serves that purpose.

And it's likely an empty worry. With just 57,164 hybrid cars in the state and fewer still that qualify for the car-pool lane because of fuel-efficiency - only the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic and Insight do so now - we probably won't notice much change in the state's HOV lanes. Besides, the bill authored by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Woodland Hills, caps the number of placards to be given out at 75,000 and has language requiring the California Department of Transportation to monitor the impact of the hybrids.

American carmakers don't like the hybrid trend either. Virginia preceded California in the incentive, and a handful of other states are considering it. Last year when the California law was proposed, American automakers complained that, because none of them made a qualifying hybrid, it just encourages the purchase of foreign cars.

Rather than kicking up a hullabaloo, American automakers might want to get with the program and come up with their own hybrids because motorists are clearly buying them. Ford is the only U.S. carmaker that has one, the Escape, but even with a hybrid engine the sport utility vehicle doesn't rate as fuel-efficient.

If anything has become clear with the gas prices this month, it's that our driving habits in the United States - particularly here in traffic-locked California - are going to change. Car-loving Los Angeles has seen a record surge in bus and rail use this summer, and hybrid sales are through the roof. The DMV reports that nearly 24,000 hybrids were registered in California in the first half of 2005.

For sure, the HOV-lane incentive must be short-term, like the federal tax break that ends next year. When Pavley's bill expires in 2007, it shouldn't be renewed or expanded. Until then, Californians should not begrudge a few drivers this small bone.