Here's Guest Dad Joe Burris with Father's Day Friday:

Late last year I wrote a post about driving in the HOV-2 lane with my 3-year-old daughter. I received a few responses from readers who said that though I had another passenger in the car, I should not have been driving in the lane.

They said that the purpose of high-occupancy-vehicles lanes is to reduce the number of cars on the road by making drivers share rides, and since my 3-year old can’t drive, we were not fulfilling that purpose.

I was taken aback by the comments, so much so that I decided to research the topic on the Web -- and I found out that it is indeed a hot one.

Motorists who share the same sentiments as those who wrote me go so far as to say that they should be able to count their pets as HOV passengers, since dogs and cats are no less occupants than children.

Others, meanwhile, say that while the purpose of the lanes is to reduce cars on the road, the requirements are only that at least two persons be present in the vehicle. They say that traffic would bog down if law enforcement checked to see whether everyone in the car had a license.

I then posed the question on Facebook, and a former colleague at the Nashville Tennessean became incensed that I would even bring it up.

“You've obviously never driven with 3 children before!” she said. “It's definitely a high [volume] occupancy vehicle. It probably is against the spirit of the HOV lane, but not against the law.”

What’s your opinion?