Okay, so I've been laughing my butt off reading this post!

I work in the the design and construction profession and do a lot with sustainable design. These parking spaces are part of the USGBC's (U.S. Green Building Council) LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system requirements for a "green" building. They are designated spaces giving preference to a certain customer base (similar to the mothers of children or expecting mother spots) and technically that is the way ADA spots started as well. Just as a reference, they only account for 5% of the site's parking capacity AND are required to be closest to the building. I'll stay away from whether they are right or wrong and I'm going to stay away from the arguement over whether or not it can be inforced or whether or not you should be parking there.
I will however provide this bit of info:
The determination for what constitutes a "low-emitting or fuel efficient vehicle" is defined by a vehicle that gets a score of 40 or higher on the ACEEE (American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy) green vehicle list. This list has more than just the prius on it

But I thought it might be nice to add this link to the arguement:
http://www.greenercars.org/highlights_greenest.htm You will see the list of the "greenest" vehicles of each class and on the side of the page you will see links to the meanest vehicles to the environment list and the overall list. You can search by year, make, model etc, to see how your vehicle ranks! EDIT: You can search the overall list (it is an excel file on one of the pages) and only if your vehicle MADE this list will it be on there.
Okay, I'm off my soap box now!

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"The power of imagination makes us infinite" - John MuirDD Ride03 Limited KJ
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