7 ms·
I live in the Bay Area and hate HOV lanes. I can look over and see that more than half of the drivers are in violation, and yet it is effectively unenforced. It
by _yb2s 9mo ago
I live in the Bay Area and hate HOV lanes. I can look over and see that more than half of the drivers are in violation, and yet it is effectively unenforced. It is a system that punishes people willing to follow the rules.
Asking someone to waste maybe up to an hour of their life everyday to sit there and watch people willing to break the rules speed by and get to be home early with their families breeds massive resentment, and anger. It encourages people to abandon all sorts of social contracts.
- rayiner 9mo agoWe just need better HOV enforcement. Preferably with space lasers.
- SkyPuncher 9mo agoCan’t you pay to be in the HOV lane? Seems like a pretty ideal system. Having that extra lane wouldn’t solve any issues for most drivers. For high occupancy or those willing to pay, it does.
- SkiFire13 9mo agoI think you missed this point: > I can look over and see that more than half of the drivers are in violation, and yet it is effectively unenforced.
- thayne 9mo agoHow do you know that those people aren't paying? OTOH, I don't know how you could effectively enforce that single occupant vehicles are paying.
- kluikens 9mo agoThe FasTrak scanners above the lane flash the occupancy setting (1, 2, or 3+) on the driver's transponder. It's easy to observe cheating single-occupant vehicles because the flashed number is 3 (a toll-free rate). For automated enforcement, there's prior art in red light camera systems that mail tickets/violations to the registered vehicle owner.
- dietr1ch 9mo agoYeah, but you pay the full fare with 1 person, half with 2 people, and it's free with 3+. It's something that isn't straight obvious though. When I got there I also thought that people were just in violation of the people requirement. I don't get the point of the occupancy reader if there's no hard-requirement of 3+ in the current zone. Maybe there are some stricter HOV-only lanes nowadays? I left the bay area in late 2023
- b112 9mo agoThey did start enforcing a bunch of lanes after COVID.
- FireBeyond 9mo agoIn Washington state, for one, I know that there used to be a phone number posted periodically for civilian reports of HOV violators. That's gone now with just a warning of the fine amounts.
- sib 9mo agoYeah and some blind (gender-TBD) Karen reported me on that when they couldn't see my kids sitting in the back seat.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Mountain_Skies 9mo agoWhen I worked for a tollway (not SF so maybe they're different), toll violations were enforced by mailing a ticket to the offender after the fact. There weren't any patrols out on the road looking for violators. Don't pay the fine (plus the toll), don't get to renew your license plates. We had agreements with some other states for enforcement against their vehicles in our state. The cameras rarely were unable to get a good enough view of the license plate for the CSRs to not be able to find out whose vehicle it was.
- SkyPuncher 9mo agoI didn’t miss the point. You had zero way to know if someone is in violation or simply paying to be there.
- _yb2s 9mo agoIn the vast majority of Bay Area HOV lanes you cannot pay to be there, that only applies to fasttrack lanes, and in those you can read the occupancy setting of others cars on an overhead screen as they drive though. In both cases you can easily tell, especially in very slow moving traffic who is in violation or not. Once when bored in very slow nearly stopped traffic during rush hour on a stretch of the 80 with no fasttrack, and in a vehicle high enough to see if there were kids in the nearby cars, I counted a large sample (about 50) cars and found that roughly two thirds of the HOV occupants were in violation.
- coldtea 9mo agoSo basically just another systemic benefit to the more well off
- loeg 9mo agoThis is how money works. You're expressing anger at the concept of personal property. Yes, those who have more money can afford more expensive goods -- that's the whole point!
- conception 9mo agoIt’s not an expensive good - its a commons. The HOV lanes are “rich people super freeways” they are there to help mass transit.
- BurningFrog 9mo agoIt's a scarce good, which loses most of its value if overused. The standard Econ solution is to set a price that maximizes throughput. At least some toll roads are attempting to hit that price.
- SR2Z 9mo agoIn the US, toll roads are required by law to maintain a certain minimum speed. The price is set based on that.
- loeg 9mo agoWhat law?
- SR2Z 9mo agoI suppose "regulation" would be more accurate, and it only applies to HOV lanes that receive funding from a specific source: https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freewaymgmt/hovguidance/chapter4.htm https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freewaymgmt/hovguidance/chapter4.ht... This covers pretty much all of the lanes that people complain about so I'll stand by what I said.
- lokar 9mo agoIn most situations the restricted lane (regardless of how you pick who gets to use it), does in fact benefit everyone else. Under high congestion traffic throughput plummets. Restricted access to one or more lanes lets you keep them flowing at near the peak, increasing the overall throughput of the system by much more than one of the congested lanes.
- imoverclocked 9mo agoThe issue is that average number is of little consolation to everyone in the slower lanes.
- hedora 9mo agoMost of the Bay Area HOV lanes are not limited access. They let you enter/exit wherever, creating congestion. They also slow down traffic at the points where people have to cross lots of lanes to enter/exit. When before/after studies have been done, the HOV lanes around here generally make everything worse.
- whimsicalism 9mo agoshare
- notyourwork 9mo agoDepends on the location. Some are strictly passenger capacity.
- _yb2s 9mo agoReally, the vast majority of them are, the fasttrack ones are in a few specific spots, but almost all bay area freeways have at least a 3+ only HOV lane.
- _yb2s 9mo ago> Can’t you pay to be in the HOV lane? On a few of them, but not the ones I commute on and am talking about. If you do use one of the 'pay' lanes, it becomes free if you switch your fasttrak device to '3+' setting, and given the frequency of visually obvious violations in the ones you can't pay for, I would be surprised if many people are actually paying for the ones you can pay for.
- caseysoftware 9mo ago^ There's a deep lesson in this comment.
- nubg 9mo agoIndeed. Benevolent introverts too often get the short stick for sticking to rules.
- jjtheblunt 9mo agoI think the benelovent introvert being discussed seems to have overlooked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTrak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTrak
- tomjakubowski 9mo agoWhat does introversion have to do with this?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 9mo ago> It is a system that punishes people willing to follow the rules. Every system?
- tshaddox 9mo agoTo be fair, this is already true of driving in general. Often in commuter traffic you’ll see one guy driving extremely unsafely, darting in and out of lanes passing everyone as fast as they can. You know this person does this every day for years, saving time by putting everyone else in danger.
- lokar 9mo agoSaving a tiny amount of time
- tormeh 9mo agoYes, I think Myth Busters did an episode on this. It saves surprisingly little time.
- goosejuice 9mo agoIs it surprising though?
- rgblambda 9mo agoThe thrill of weaving through traffic vs the tedium of being the traffic might be the real incentive, whether the driver is consciously aware of that or not.
- graemep 9mo agoIts a facto, but I think people also do think it makes more a difference than it does. One thing I have noticed from using satnav is that even with a mostly motorway journey the difference between driving fast and driving at a more leisurely pace is never more than a minute or two per hour compared to the predicted time. I knew it from seeing how often I later caught up with someone driving very aggressively, but quantifying it made me realise just how consistent the small difference is.
- pinko 9mo ago
- jjtheblunt 9mo agoYou can't see that they're in violation: the RF transponder effects compliance and you pay when using the lane, if you're talking about the lanes i used to use to great effect, for money. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTrak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTrak )
- Retric 9mo agoThe FasTrak system shows the occupancy setting, it’s obvious when people are displaying the wrong setting.
- creato 9mo agoDoes that setting actually matter? When I lived in the area that had these, I always forgot to set it when the number of passengers in my car changed. I never saw any difference. The charge is the same.
- OptionOfT 9mo agoDepends on the area. The 210 in Los Angeles allows you to jump on the toll-lanes for free if you have >= 3 people in the car. And I think at certain times it's only >= 2 people.
- Retric 9mo agoIt makes a difference in some locations such as I-580 5am-8pm: https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/help/using-your-fastrak-flex-toll-tag-faqs.shtml https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/help/using-your-fastrak-fl...
- sib 9mo agoSo obvious that I was incorrectly reported by a "fellow" driver when they apparently failed to see my kids riding in the back seat.
- Retric 9mo agoTall driver in a SUV looking down on an open topped convertible isn’t a false positive. But sure, cops occasionally pull people over in HOV lanes for false positives and then let them go. However, when you’re looking at 100’s of cars doing the same thing false positives only account for a small percentage of that.
- lokar 9mo agoI really wish we would have special enforcement for just this (and transit), and just adjust the fines and staffing levels until enforcement breaks even on costs, and evasion is minimal. And make the fines based on income.
- K0balt 9mo agoPerverse incentives are a bitch. I can see this becoming speeding as a service.
- no_wizard 9mo agoIf they snap the license plate and no fast pass they send a bill in the mail for the full monthly cost of a pass if I recall correctly
- someperson 9mo agoIs there any enforcement such as towing and impounding vehicles that don't pay those bills?
- SR2Z 9mo agoYou cannot update the registration on your car if you have outstanding fines (at least in CA, but probably in most states). Driving a car without a registration will (in theory) get you pulled over, and eventually your car will be impounded. In practice? Car ownership is required to participate in society in most parts of the US and governments are very unwilling to take away people's ability to drive.
- potato3732842 9mo ago>In practice? Car ownership is required to participate in society in most parts of the US and governments are very unwilling to take away people's ability to drive. Because there isn't support for the iron fisted rules enforcement a lot of HN favors and if the .gov just did it anyway the people would elect politicians who promise to reign that in. Keeping the power on the books and rarely using it is what benefits .gov the most so it's what they do.
- whimsicalism 9mo agothe issue is that the HOV lanes are currently full of people who have fast pass but just set it to say they have 3 in the car. i truly see enough people doing this when i commute that at $500/ticket i could cover my entire state income tax in 1-2 days. seems obviously economical to enforce this.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- zeroonetwothree 9mo agoIt would be better if we had congestion pricing for all lanes. Then it would be less of an issue.
- hedora 9mo agoThe HOV lanes cause absurd amounts of congestion, both from encouraging all the HOV drivers to aggressively switch lanes, and because they greatly increase the speed differential between lanes. They’re a money / surveillance grab.
- iknowstuff 9mo agoIs there data to support this or is this just your hunch? Because I’m betting this is false. It’s not a money grab as much as moving more of the actual cost of freeways onto drivers who are mostly used to externalizing it
- whateveracct 9mo agopeople drive slow in HOV lanes. and the. in the lane next to it, people do too. it destroys the natural speed hierarchy of highway driving.
- bakies 9mo agono one respects that hierarchy anymore anyway in my experience. The HOV lane is usually traveling faster that the passing lane.
- SR2Z 9mo agoI really would like to see a citation for how adding new, congestion-free lanes with limited opportunities for merging to an already congested highway makes it worse.
- whimsicalism 9mo agoyeah i think you’re just making up reasons to be mad about something you were going to dislike.
- doctorpangloss 9mo agoTraffic is one of the most boring fucking things to talk about. If you want to feel pissed about something: One of the most popular new cars purchased in California was the Jeep Wrangler 4xe, because it gave you HOV access and a $7,500 tax credit, even though nobody charges it and its battery is anemic anyway.
- SR2Z 9mo agoEVs no longer have HOV access.
- _yb2s 9mo agoYou're gatekeeping being mad about a system that is asking me to decide between breaking a law/social contract, and wasting hours of my life every week while watching other people break it the whole time? No, I'm not mad about the Wrangler 4xe, it's really great that plug in hybrid tech is moving into a wider range of vehicles useful for things like rough terrain. A small battery is still plenty for the vast majority of driving people actually do.
- eslaught 9mo agoIf you drive in the FasTrak lanes without an account you pay the fee + $10 surcharge (for a first time violation), and it goes up on the second violation: https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/help/invoices-and-penalties-faqs.shtml#faq-3 https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/help/invoices-and-penaltie... I'm having a hard time finding a citation but according to Google's AI summary if the second violation is unpaid they put a hold on your DMV registration, and the fine itself can be sent to a collection agency. I agree empirically I see people driving through the lane without a tag (i.e., no number shows up in the overhead display), but maybe these are people with FasTrak accounts being lazy?
- calmworm 9mo ago> but according to Google's AI summary Rarely a good citation. No pun intended.
- Rebelgecko 9mo agoOr people who drive over the cones right before the RFID reader Or lie and set the transponder to 3 people Or don't have license plates so can't be identified
- b112 9mo agoOne annoying thing is I've tried to pay, but can't. I spend about four to five months per year in the Bay Area, but have Canadian license plates. The website doesn't even let you enter a Canadian plate, or a foreign plate. So I bought one of the transponders at Walgreens, and just leave it in the glove box because it has 20 bucks or something when you buy it. But I can't check its status, don't know how much is left on it, have no idea what I'm paying, really sucks.
- ainka-ainka 9mo agoGo to https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/home/index.shtml https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/home/index.shtml, make an account and link your tag using it's serial number. Hopefully you'll get the information you're looking for there.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- almosthere 9mo agoThat's the actual problem with CA in general if you haven't noticed. Be good and watch them take everything.
- MBlume 9mo agoThis is an easy fix. Ditch the HOV element and make the lane toll-only. Tolls already encourage carpooling -- more people in the car means less toll per occupant.
- whimsicalism 9mo agostrong agree. i like the HOV lanes in concept, but the reality of California means they should just be toll lanes.
- whateveracct 9mo agopeople also drive slow as shit in HOV lanes
- potato3732842 9mo ago>I live in the Bay Area and hate HOV lanes. I can look over and see that more than half of the drivers are in violation, and yet it is effectively unenforced. It is a system that punishes people willing to follow the rules. There's a lesson about society and government in there.
- bakies 9mo agoThat's not a good reason to hate HOV lanes. That's a good reason to hate the enforcement policy. In Boston there is a trooper at the entrance that will jump in front of violators and pull them over.