N.C. DMV Rules Two Men on a Love Seat Qualify for the Carpool Lane

RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles ruled Tuesday that two men pulled over while driving a love seat down Charlotte’s South Tryon Street last month qualified for the carpool lane, because each couch cushion counts as a passenger.

By the division’s math, the love seat, which Charlotte-Mecklenburg police found balanced on two Lime electric scooters on Sept. 25, carried four occupants: two men, two cushions. That clears the three-person minimum to ride free on the I-77 Express Lanes, and nobody in the back asked if they were there yet.

The 41-page bulletin also classifies a sofa as a passenger vehicle, a sectional as a bus and a futon as a convertible. Recliners require a commercial license, ottomans must be towed, and a pullout sofa bed counts as an RV.

“People have operated these things recklessly for decades. Eating on them, falling asleep on them, letting the dog drive,” said Bev Sittwell, the division’s new director of soft furnishings. “Charlotte police said they had questions, too. We have a form.”

Couches also face annual under-cushion inspections. Tuck Davenport, president of the Carolina Upholstery Dealers Association, said a Durham pilot program turned up $11 million in loose change, 4,000 TV remotes and a 1997 Pontiac Grand Am. “The family had been looking for it since Thanksgiving,” he said.

Gastonia retiree Earl Futterman, 66, who has not left his recliner since 2019, was first in line for a commercial license after his nephews carried him in, recliner and all. “Six years, one accident,” Futterman said. “And that ottoman came out of nowhere.”

In a follow-up statement, the division clarified that a cardboard sign reading “FREE” taped to a curbside sofa does not count as a title, “No matter how long it has been raining on it.”