Anecdotally, I've heard from many people that in pre-pandemic traffic on the peninsula, the occasional carpool ticket was worth it for the time savings they got

Anecdotally, I've heard from many people that in pre-pandemic traffic on the peninsula, the occasional carpool ticket was worth it for the time savings they got from taking the carpool lane. Carpool lane violations don't accrue points, so there's no insurance hikes or potential to lose your license. Especially with things like Waze being available, in slow-moving traffic cops didn't change their positions often and so you could fairly reliably avoid being in violation when you were in sight of them.