CHP’s Anti-Snarl Program Arrives

A California Highway Patrol program to reduce freeway congestion during accidents and hazards has been expanded into San Diego County.

The six-month pilot project is designed to relieve congestion on certain freeways in San Diego and Orange counties, said John P. Marinez, CHP public affairs coordinator, at a Thursday press conference in San Diego. Teams of “congestion relief officers” will patrol the freeways looking for problems.

Officers will be deployed on Interstate 8 from I-805 to the Grossmont Summit. In North County, they will patrol California 78 from Mar Vista Drive in Vista to I-15.

To save time, the officers will work with regular beat officers, who will take accident reports and do hospital follow-ups while the special officers direct traffic. The officers will be sent out on weekdays from 6 to 9:30 a.m. and from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Tow trucks will be dispatched to speed removal of stalled vehicles, Marinez said.

“Any traffic hazard affects the flow of traffic,” he said. “For example, a piece of wood might be on the freeway, and the first person brakes and delays people that are behind. Each minute an obstacle sits on the freeway, every vehicle is delayed an average of four minutes.”

Drivers of stalled cars can also help by staying with their cars until an officer arrives, he said.

“One citizen’s car broke down and blocked traffic, and, instead of staying with the car, he locked the doors and left it,” Marinez said. “When the CHP got there, they had to use a ‘slim jim’ to get inside the vehicle to move it.”

The program began in Los Angeles in July and will expand this year to include every major city in the state.

The Los Angeles project also uses helicopters to monitor freeways, a decision that is left to the discretion of each CHP commander, Marinez said.