Usefulness of High Occupancy Lanes
You Gotta' Love the HOV Lane?
If you're an auto body shop, that is or maybe a foreign country selling us oil.
Have you ever tried to figure out how we all got stuck with HOV lanes? I have. It isn't easy but it appears to be a Federal mandate type of nightmare, courtesy of the Federal Highway Administration (whoever they are), connected somehow to the Federal Department of Transportation and/or the Department of Environmental Control.
Then, in conjunction with various state transportation agencies that monitor them, we end up with our HOV's. In short, the HOV was created by, and appears to be hobbled in - bureaucracy. Wikipedia offers an interesting and more detailed discussion, particularly in their "criticisms" section.
Together with a lot of Federal doublespeak, the Federal Highway Administration website link above, notes that "In accepting Federal funds to acquire right-of-way, to design or construct HOV lanes, agencies agree to manage, operate and maintain the HOV lanes in a safe and efficient manner." Safe and efficient? Hmmm. That's debatable! They take our tax dollars and barter them back to us as the HOV nightmare.
High Occupancy Vehicle lanes, often called Car Pool lanes or Diamond lanes, appear to have been first introduced in California during the 1970's. Original intentions were to reduce highway congestion while saving precious gallons of fuel by rewarding those who would carpool.
It sounded good but if you web search "HOV's" you'll find precious few "good" things said about them - unless said from a governmental or environmental web site. In fact, the highly respected Texas Transportation Institute did a study. According to the newspaper.com they found a 50% increase in injury accidents when HOV's were not at least protected by barrier.
My own HOV nightmare is the one on Long Island's Expressway. Even the efforts of our Suffolk County Executive, Steve Levy, have not yet been able to improve it according to this linked article from Newsday. (You gotta' love Steve. He's a Pol who actually cares about quality of life and stuff like that!)
Now don't get me wrong. The HOV is a "wunnerfull thing" for the limited few who are able to use it. But in order to join the ranks of those select few, you either have to be on a bus, drive a motorcycle (in whatever weather), or spring for a Hybrid, which can be costly.
Oh yeah, you can also car pool. This assumes of course, that you live near someone who works near you, shares the same work schedule, and that neither of you have even the remotest chance of getting held over at the job for an urgent meeting or few.
So the HOV just hums along until they have to merge out of their lane and into the regular traffic, thereby slowing three lanes of regular traffic to a crawl that backs up for miles. The HOVer's hum along saving a few gallons, and cause the majority of the traffic to sit still, burning countless thousands of gallons of fuel at idle. Do the Environmentalists ever actually drive the road?
Okay. So Driverthink is suggesting (strongly) that the HOV is both unsafe and single handedly melts glaciers. How do we drive it? How do we drive if we're next to it?
The first thing we have to consider is that the HOV is one big, long, fat Road Hazard. We have to recognize it for the significant danger it poses.
If we're in the limited access HOV we have to understand that not everyone else is going to cruise comfortably along at our chosen speed. Should we get pinned behind a slower vehicle, we're trapped. No safe way around him. No options other than to risk the steep fine.
Of course, we're also trapped by the tailgater. If we're running seventy and the puppy on our bumper wants ninety, we can't safely do much about it.
If we're moving nicely in our HOV and the proletariat traffic is snarled, you can absolutely expect one or more of them to "jump the lines" and cut into the HOV right in front of you. Don't let them get all tangled up in your front bumper.
And if you're running along side the HOV? Be careful. Don't just assume that because it's illegal to change lanes, those guys and gals over there are going to stay put. Those cars stacked up behind the "slow Joe" will eventually lose it and pop on over into your, now faster lane. It may be a Cut Off you really didn't expect.
Finally, you can simply use another road. In Suffolk County, New York I offer, for example, Sunrise Highway. No HOV. Nice smooth traffic even in rush hour.
Ah, the HOV. We've gotta' love em? Let's just get rid of them and start saving lives!
