Carpool Lane Abusers Fuel Commuters’ Anger, Outrage

This one’s for the commuters.

We are the Zombie Patrol, the hollow-eyed laborers who cruise so often from A to B and back again that we could probably arrive asleep in complete safety--and sometimes do.

We wake fresh, arrive at work grumpy and come home surly.

We hum vapid traffic jingles in the shower and can recite irritating radio ads from memory.

We have consumed more books on tape than books on paper.

Our no-spill coffee mugs bear countless teeth marks that we have gouged during countless panic stops, and we can simultaneously coif our hair, fiddle with radio knobs and make a snap lane change without missing a beat.

Our dreams are filled with flashing white lines, our nightmares with the stuttering rumble of Botts dots.

Our name is legion.

And we all know that the carpool lane is not a free ride through gridlock, just another high-voltage tightrope act over the shark-infested waters known as our morning commute.

Dear Street Smart:

We read and enjoy your column each week. Two questions:

When in a carpool lane legally, what are you to do when you are driving the speed limit and a car behind you wants to pass (i.e. he tailgates you and flashes his lights)?

And what is the fine for entering and exiting the carpool lane when double yellow lines are in place? Is it the same $271 fine?

On a recent trip across the Foothill Freeway, people would enter and exit at will and feel they were free to speed. What is this all about?

Frank Simpson

Westlake Village

Dear Reader:

We have answers to your questions, in reverse order:

This is all about California’s 670-mile system of carpool lanes. Or, as state law and jargon-happy Caltrans would have it, the state’s “High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes.” They have multiplied since the first one was opened on the El Monte Busway on the San Bernardino Freeway in 1973.

So, it seems, have carpool scofflaws.

Entering and exiting the carpool lane across the double yellow lines can cost you a $271 fine if you get caught.

But many carpool lane users don’t seem to get the basic idea.

It is meant for commuters who team up in carpools to relieve traffic jams and pollution. It rewards its lawful users with the privilege of whizzing gleefully down the left side of an otherwise clogged freeway.

It is not a license to speed, tailgate, or harass and endanger other drivers.

And it is not meant to fill your rear mirror every morning and evening with 3,000 pounds of chrome-trimmed, halogen-armed, testosterone-charged attitude trying to drive straight up your tailpipe when you have no legal escape.

“If you’re doing the maximum speed limit . . . and you have someone coming up behind you that wants to go faster, the only thing you can do is wait until you have the opportunity to get out of that lane and let that person go on by,” says California Highway Patrol Officer David Cockrill.

“But if the guy is just blatantly riding your rear and doing all that other stuff, you might just as well cross over the line,” he adds. “Because hopefully, if the officer sees him doing all the other stuff, he’ll pull the other guy over and have a chat with him instead of you.”

Dear Street Smart:

In a recent column, you have a quote from CHP Officer Dave Cockrill, who said, “A carpool lane is a carpool lane. Even though the meter isn’t being used, you still need to abide by the carpool rules, which is two or more occupants.”

This quote surprised me, as most (if not all) onramp carpool lanes have a sign that states, “CARPOOL LANE, 2 OR MORE OCCUPANTS PER VEHICLE ONLY WHEN METERED.”

The implication of the sign is if the meter is off, any vehicle may use the onramp carpool lane.

If the electronic “Meter On” sign is unlit, anyone should be able to use the onramp carpool lane. If it is lit, only carpools should use the lane.

David Weinstein

Moorpark

Dear Reader:

Street Smart took your letter to Officer Cockrill, and near as we can make out, his statement referred to the actual freeway carpool lane. That is, when the meter is not on, the carpool lanes out on the freeway itself are still in effect, and driving solo in one can cost you $271.

“The ramp is [restricted] only when metered, obviously,” Cockrill says. “If the meter is not in operation, then it doesn’t really serve a purpose other than as a lane.”

Dear Street Smart:

The carpool lane at the Tapo Canyon onramp to the eastbound Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley is being abused.

At least once per day, at 6:40 a.m. from Monday through Friday, a lone driver uses the carpool lane. This really aggravates me, as well as others, I’m sure!

I’m sure it is happening at other metered onramps in Simi. Can’t the Highway Patrol set up there once per week? Seems like easy revenue for the state.

Rick Prasnicki

Simi Valley

Dear Reader:

We’re sure that irritates you. Probably as much as Street Smart is irritated by the royal highnesses who drive as though turn signals, freeway lanes, speed limits and the rest of the ignorant peasants littering the regal highway are too far beneath their inbred contempt to even loathe.

And we’re sure you’ll feel vindicated and proud to know that if that lane is metered--and Caltrans says that all those Simi ramps now are metered for the morning rush--then that free spirit is a scofflaw.

But don’t count on the California Highway Patrol to glue its only patrol cruiser for the entire Moorpark/Simi Valley area to that one onramp in hopes of generating a single traffic ticket.

“It’s difficult for us to commit an officer for one particular violator when there’s so much going on in the county,” Cockrill says.

As for the vast sums of revenue it would generate--$271, if the violator paid on time and promised never to do it again--the state would reap very little. Most ticket revenue goes to the county coffers and the city where the violation was committed, Cockrill says.

Sorry. As the sergeant used to say on “Hill Street Blues,” “They’re getting away out there.”

NEXT: “Sizzling summer VACATION FUN!!!!!”

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