I was curious if you remove the back seat of a vehicle, whether it is a Mini or a SUV, is now considered a two seater, voiding the requirement of 3 passengers for some HOV lanes?
You might not be able to convince an officer that removing the seat of a sedan makes it a 2 person capacity vehicle. However, I can see hauling stuff in a hatchback that would require removing seating capacity.
I used to own a 1969 Alfa Romeo. It had a small "bench" in the rear that was mostly for decoration, but I squeezed myself back there on occasion, but only by sitting horizontally across the bench. It was clearly sized for small hobbits or perhaps a pack of chihuahuas. There were no seatbelts back there--it wasn't manufactured with them, and there was no mounting point for belts.
One day going across the Bay Bridge with only one additional passenger in the HOV lane, my husband was stopped for a violation of the HOV policy despite showing the officer the situation, paperwork on the car, etc. The cop called in another moto cop and in the end they decided to play it conservatively and issue the ticket. They told him that he could fight it. He contested it and won, but what a pain in the butt. We were out a wad of cash waiting for the court date and then waiting for the refund, not to mention the time it took to prepare materials and to actually show up in court. :rolleyes
I guess the take-away is that even when one actually IS a two-seater, if there's any question, it can cause problems. If you're just trying to "game the system" then perhaps it's worth it to you to get nailed once in a while.
