‘Car Pool Lanes Drive These Guys Crazy’

Some people spend their leisure time collecting stamps. Others umpire Little League baseball games, do charity work or keep tropical fish. But not the group of five men who headlined the Orange County section of the L.A. Times Sunday (Nov. 26).

I applaud the fivesome in their effort to change what they think is a Caltrans version of the Blob. More people should get off the couch as they have. Unfortunately, they have devoted their energy toward a misdirected cause.

The Caltrans diamond lane may be a social engineering project, but to those who use it religiously, it inarguably works. I have a dream that someday my children will have the pleasure of seeing the high-occupancy lane as congested as the general-use lanes. Then maybe we will have to open yet a second car-pool lane, and so on.

If Southern Californians don’t release their strangling grip on their ever-so-precious automobile, we’ll all be choking on airborne pollutants or even each other from gridlock frustration.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to compute the effects of doubling up to work. And I hardly think turning the diamond lanes into general-purpose lanes could increase traffic flow to the point where less time spent on the freeway would counter the doubling effect.

If our five friends pooled together in the diamond lane, they might have some extra time to indulge in the pleasures of collecting stamps, umpiring Little League, working for a charity or even watching their tropical fish!

RICH LEONE

Laguna Niguel