Not Everyone Wants to Sit Alone in Traffic

* The Commentary article by Gerald and Myrna Silver “Car Pool Lanes Are Putting Us In Reverse” (June 5), leaves many questions unanswered.

If high-occupancy-vehicle lanes won’t reduce travel time, why do people with whom I work report that their commute times are 20 minutes less each way using the HOV lanes on the San Diego and San Bernardino freeways?

Isn’t it true that cars going 50-60 m.p.h. pollute less than cars in bump-and-grind traffic conditions?

HOV lanes are an option, a choice for people who try to pollute less and make their own lives less stressful. Is this bad?

Mr. Silver’s worship of his relationship with his car is very funny. Nobody wants to ban solo driving. Nobody cares if Mr. Silver ever gets out of his vehicle again.

But to make statements like “solo driving . . . is the ideal sought after by every commuter squeezed into some sort of collectivized transportation anywhere in the world” is absurd. Can anyone picture commuters on Metrolink trains or express buses looking at the jammed freeways alongside, putting down their newspapers or waking from their naps and screaming, “Stop! I want to sit alone in traffic!”

BOB SAUNDERS

North Hollywood