Hooniverse Asks- Do HOV Lanes Tick You Off?

Robert Emslie

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HOV-lane

Ignoring the political schism they engender, there is still something immensely frustrating about watching the veritable ghost town that is the HOV lane when you’re stuck solo in traffic. High Occupancy Vehicle lanes first appeared in the U.S. back in the 1970s, as carrot and stick approach to engendering greater efficiency out of our nation’s existing highway infrastructure. During the ’80s and ’90s the lanes – open to cars with a minimum of 2 or 3 occupants as well as motorcycles – expanded their reach across the nation. Other countries have adopted the traffic management tactic as well. In the last decade the right to ride in the typically more freely moving highway lane has been broadened to include solo drivers in hybrid and pure electric cars.

It was this amendment to the  HOV club rules that I think caused the pushback by drivers stuck in the regular  lanes. Today, there are grumblings about HOV lanes and their use. Some advocate denying access to anyone who would not otherwise be occupying a car, excluding sub-driving age children and the blind from enjoying getting home a little early. Others decry the perceived  environmentalist elitism the lanes engender, and advocate their elimination entirely, thus opening up another lane to the egalitarian solo driver traffic.

Of course a derivation of Parkinson’s Law is that traffic will expand to fill the available highway space, and then we’d be simply stuck to stop and go on 5 lanes instead of just 4. Plus, all those socially enlightened carpoolers would be condemned to suffer the same fate. The question for today is, would you prefer that over the occasional chance to slip into the HOV lane and sail past the teeming masses, just because  it happened to be take you kid to work day? More to the point, when you are rolling solo on the highway, and see the HOV lane occupants go zipping by, unencumbered by the sloth caused by traffic volumes unanticipated by the road’s designers, does that tick you off?

Image: Autos by Sympatico

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Robert Emslie

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51 responses to “Hooniverse Asks- Do HOV Lanes Tick You Off?”

  1. Peter Tanshanomi Avatar
    Peter Tanshanomi

    No, because here in the Midwest I rarely see them.
    Besides, it's one way government is trying to get people to be more economical and eco-friendly that doesn't involve dumbing down and emasculating my vehicle, so that's good. I can drive a 455 Olds Rocket big block with glass packs, and as long as I have a couple of friends along for the ride, I'm free to use them…

    Reply
  2. Peter Tanshanomi Avatar
    Peter Tanshanomi

    BTW, 100 bonus points for citing Parkinson's Law.

    Reply
  3. joshwebster84 Avatar
    joshwebster84

    HOV lanes are great. Here in Houston, they are available to paying EZ-Tag owners too.

    Reply
    1. ˏ♂ˊ mzs zsm msz esq Avatar
      ˏ♂ˊ mzs zsm msz esq

      That EZ-Tag thing bugged me, I had six in the car, but the idea that you can pay to avoid congestion did not sit well with me. Maybe if I thought about it more, it would make sense. Another thing was there was a place where to get to my hotel I went my a reader but there was no place to throw in coins and unlike in IL it was not marked that this would nbe a problem. I had my I-Pass, hope it worked, never heard anything.
      I don't have HOV lanes where I live now, so I generally like them and wish they had them here near Chicago. I liked them in the Bay area where I used to live, cause you could pretty much get in and out where ever you needed to. That's my biggest trouble with them. When I travel, so often it is not clear where you can get in and then get off. So I will be on a vacation with a full car, but not know how to get in and stuck in the traffic (some place you needed to get off to the right and take a special little bridge to get on to the HOV lanes to the left. Or I'll see an entrance to the HOV lanes but that's all the sign says, it does not tell me how many miles or what the next exit is that I will be able to leave at is. So I don't get on cause I am not sure if I can get out in time.

      Reply
      1. joshwebster84 Avatar
        joshwebster84

        Doesn't bother me because it puts money into the road maintenance budget.

        Reply
  4. Maymar Avatar
    Maymar

    Doesn't bother me at all, I appreciate the effort to get more cars off the road (although I usually lean towards more stringent driver testing to clear that up).
    That said, I have no qualms using the HOV lane as an extra passing lane, especially because the HOV lanes I usually end up driving around have pretty much no where for cops to hide and catch me misusing HOV (also,if everyone else is misusing lanes, why should I be the exception?).

    Reply
  5. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    I'm fond of HOV-lanes. It's a good, visible, simple incentive to more efficient travel. Sometimes, one extra lane wouldn't do the trick for the masses anyway. But I can't tell to what extend this actually increases sharing a ride, or wether it just helps those that are not alone in their car anyway.
    What is annoying is the fact that in my police-less country too many people ignore the underlining principle of actually following the rules that this policy depends on.

    Reply
  6. muthalovin Avatar
    muthalovin

    No, I enjoy listening to Jay-Z.

    Reply
    1. LTDScott Avatar
      LTDScott

      Wow.

      Reply
    2. Peter Tanshanomi Avatar
      Peter Tanshanomi

      Yes, but I've never seen him bowl, so I don't know how he is on the lanes.

      Reply
  7. LTDScott Avatar
    LTDScott

    "…traffic will expand to fill the available highway space, and then we’d be simply stuck to stop and go on 5 lanes instead of just 4." You just described L.A., where I have found the HOV lanes to be pretty pointless. For that reason, HOV lanes and their users don't bother me at all. It's pretty rare that I get to use them, but when I get the opportunity, I do.
    There are pros and cons depending on how they're set up. If they're segregated from the normal lanes by a barrier or median, it can be a good thing because you can fly by slowed traffic in the normal lanes without fear of someone diving in right in front of you as you're going at a higher speed. But on the other hand, if it's just one segregated lane, then you can get stuck behind a slowpoke with no way of getting out for quite a while (405 South to 5 South, I'm looking at you).
    I also like where the HOV lane is not completely segregated (like I-5 in southern Orange County and lots of places in the Bay Area) because you can duck in and out as needed, but you risk the chance of someone diving in front of you as mentioned above.
    Pro-tip: If you get pulled over on the freeway for speeding and crossing double yellow lines to get out of an HOV lane and the officer gives you the option of picking which violation to be ticketed for, choose the speeding. I was in just such a situation about 5 years ago and thankfully I chose wisely. The fine for the other violation was about 3 times as much.

    Reply
    1. DBuxtehude Avatar
      DBuxtehude

      I live in the same general area as you, and I find that I never use the HOV lanes. Pretty much every time I've used them, I've either gotten stuck behind someone going much slower than I would like to go (as you describe), or else I *am* the slowpoke holding up an enraged soccer mom in a BMW X5.

      Reply
    2. Sky_Render Avatar
      Sky_Render

      …Except that an HOV violation might not make your insurance rates go up.

      Reply
      1. LTDScott Avatar
        LTDScott

        Sure it would, a moving violation is a moving violation.

        Reply
  8. JayP2112 Avatar
    JayP2112

    Here the HOV lanes are pretty unused- until someone stops short and the vehicle behind uses it as a run-off area to avoid a rearender.

    Reply
  9. Masoklacaligander Avatar
    Masoklacaligander

    I enjoy getting to occassionally zip along in what most understand to be the Hi-Speed HOV lane and thank my passengers for it. I reserve my hatred for those who use the HOV lane for the purpose of controlling countless others by providing unwanted pace-car service by traveling at 1 mph below the posted speed limit. Nothing inspires mass road-rage more than being stuck behind a sanctimonious Prius or a 1985 Volvo Diesel jockey, with traffic passing on the right at 10 mph over the posted speed limit!!

    Reply
    1. joshwebster84 Avatar
      joshwebster84

      Hear, hear.

      Reply
  10. smalleyxb122 Avatar
    smalleyxb122

    If you do the math, it actually saves fuel to open the lanes to all traffic. The HOV qualified drivers would be slowed to the same crawl as everyone else, but they are actually the more efficient vehicles to be caught in stop and go traffic. We should be trying to keep the less efficient vehicles moving as efficiently as possible. The additional traffic volume allowed by opening the HOV lane to all drivers would, in theory, not change the aggregate average travel speed, and by slowing down the HOV-ers, the median driver gets to travel at an imperceptible, but statistically significant, faster pace.
    The math says that it makes more sense to open the lanes to everyone, even from (or especially from) an environmental perspective.
    I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate, of course. I would encourage carpooling whenever feasible. The math doesn’t lie, but it does assume that the same people would be carpooling even without the privilege of HOV travel. Sometimes to get people to act in a way “for the common good” you have to offer a selfish incentive, even if it runs counter to the “common good”.

    Reply
    1. ˏ♂ˊ mzs zsm msz esq Avatar
      ˏ♂ˊ mzs zsm msz esq

      I used to live in the Bay area and would specifically plan my driving to take advantage of the car pool lanes, so did a dozen of the people I worked with (we even had something like an office irc for it), and that's why that worked pretty well, and so your assumption that it does not change driving and carpooling is probably invalid. Also people spend only a portion of their gasoline on freeways, the hybrid and electric cars are also used off of them. You only considered the use on freeways but you need to consider where all the gasoline is consumed. And the use of hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles on the carpool lanes (as well as the tax incentives) encouraged some I know to buy them, so that may be a wrinkle as well. This would be a pretty interesting thing to study, I'm not sure which way would come out on top now.

      Reply
  11. dukeisduke Avatar
    dukeisduke

    Only when they do a crappy job designing them. Throughout the 1990s, TxDOT spent years and millions of dollars rebuilding North Central Expressway (US 75) through Dallas, Richardson, and Plano. They did a great job of that, but then several years ago, they added HOV lanes between Plano, and LBJ Freeway (I-635) in North Dallas. To accomplish this, they took away the left shoulders, and narrowed all the main traffic lanes, which can make for a white knuckle ride when you're contending with eighteen-wheelers.
    To make matters worse, they couldn't just paint a double stripe to separate the HOV lane from the other lanes. They had to install plastic pylons, which eventually break off and have to be replaced. This became a scandal a couple of years ago, because TxDOT was not keeping up with the replacements, leaving gaps for cars to enter and exit the lanes at random places, causing several bad accidents, a couple of which were fatal. The news media aired reports which finally put pressure on TxDOT to step up and monitor and replace the pylons.
    <img src="http://transportationblog.dallasnews.com/files/2012/09/HOVLANEPHOTO.jpg"&gt;

    Reply
  12. Donovan Avatar
    Donovan

    Nope, but the ones in Houston get heavily used

    Reply
  13. OA5599 Avatar
    OA5599

    I use the HOVs, generally on a Friday when I'm getting out of town and take it all the way to the end. It's a great time saver.
    That being said, I do not like policies allowing use by single-occupant hybrids. Those are vehicles optimized for stop-and-start traffic conditions, and they don't pollute when they are stopped. Throw those drivers into the regular lanes of traffic, and let somebody in a gas-guzzling big block muscle car save some gasoline expense and the rest of us will be spared the additional pollutants exiting the rumbling dual exhaust at idle.

    Reply
    1. FuzzyPlushroom Avatar
      FuzzyPlushroom

      I'm with you on this. If you're carpooling, great. There's incentive to cut your fuel usage in half (or by two-thirds, or…). Do hybrids do that on the highway compared with ordinary petrol-powered cars? We all know the answer to that.

      Reply
      1. OA5599 Avatar
        OA5599

        They burn more gas zipping along unimpeded than they do stuck in traffic.
        <img src="http://www.autospies.com/images/users/Agent009/EPA%20Prius.JPG&quot; width=500>

        Reply
  14. Irishzombieman☆ Avatar
    Irishzombieman☆

    I think the whole idea of carpooling would really take off with the right sort of marketing campaign.
    <img src="http://i2.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ride_with_hitler.jpg&quot; width=450>

    Reply
    1. dukeisduke Avatar
      dukeisduke

      And he never shuts up. Always with the shouting…

      Reply
      1. don fehlio Avatar
        don fehlio

        <img src="http://i.imgur.com/D6CY3V0.gif&quot; width="600">
        In case embed doesn't work, <a href="http://i.imgur.com/D6CY3V0.gif” target=”_blank”>http://i.imgur.com/D6CY3V0.gif

        Reply
      2. Irishzombieman☆ Avatar
        Irishzombieman☆

        And when he isn't shouting, he's playing that damned harmonica. Frickin' weirdo.

        Reply
  15. Irishzombieman☆ Avatar
    Irishzombieman☆

    When I'm waiting patiently in a line of stopped traffic where, for example, lanes merge, and some jackass comes zooming up on the shoulder and tries to bully his way in long after everyone else has zippered together politely, I take a certain amount of passive-aggressive pleasure not letting the schmuck in.
    Once I got this jerk stuck against a bridge abutment where he couldn't do anything without backing up, and there were enough other jerks pulling the same trick that he going to be there for a good long time.
    I don't currently live in a place with HOV lanes, but when I did, I took the same sort of pleasure in obstructing carpoolers as they tried to use the very short HOV entry/exit points.
    I am a bad, bad person.

    Reply
    1. C³-Cool Cadillac Cat Avatar
      C³-Cool Cadillac Cat

      You're not alone in how you treat self-entitled asses on the road.
      There have been a few times, however, I longed for my old beat-up W124 so I could prove I'm not going to be the one to back down.
      Yeah, let's talk insurance, shall we? Oh, really? Wait right here…hello, local PD, yeah, well yuh see there's this guy…

      Reply
  16. Van_Sarockin Avatar
    Van_Sarockin

    The point of an HOV lane is to reward people who carpool by allowing them to save time commuting. This also removes additional cars from general traffic flows. To achieve travel time savings, the HOV lane has to be less congested than general traffic, which can allow it to process more cars per hour at higher speeds, that stop and go congestion does. Certainly, there are HOV lanes that are poorly designed or operated. Those ahould be improved. Folks who complain about HOV lanes should think about the time, gas and bile they waste by not carpooling.

    Reply
  17. DemonXanth Avatar
    DemonXanth

    HOV lanes don't because the point is to reduce congestion. Allowing "green" cars in HOV does because you're removing the entire point to make someone feel good about buying an overpriced car. I understand motorcycles because they do take up much less space on the roadways and parking lots. But a Prius takes up effectively as much space as my Dakota. They're doing f' all to help with congestion and reducing the need for roads themselves.

    Reply
  18. mdharrell Avatar
    mdharrell

    Around here they're open to motorcycles and "motorcycles" so I'm happy to make use of them, particularly to bypass our metered onramps. I prefer as much of a run to get up to speed before merging as possible.
    <img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5133/5512867456_cfc3733b03.jpg&quot; width="450">
    I really need to arrange a photo of my Freeway on the freeway….

    Reply
    1. MVEilenstein Avatar
      MVEilenstein

      I know someone who can help . . .

      Reply
  19. Devin Avatar
    Devin

    I live in Saskatchewan, we barely have extra lanes, let alone HOV lanes.

    Reply
  20. MVEilenstein Avatar
    MVEilenstein

    I don't like paying for something I can't use. If HOV lanes were metered such that only carpools and motorcycles were paying for them, that would be OK with me.

    Reply
    1. I Think Not Avatar
      I Think Not

      Tricky, because by reducing congestion on the non-HOV lanes, you are benefiting from the existence of the HOV lane.
      Not much, of course, compared to those who use the HOV lanes, but you do benefit.

      Reply
  21. Slow_Joe_Crow Avatar
    Slow_Joe_Crow

    HOV lanes for genuinely high occupancy vehicles like carpools and motorcycles are fine by me since I am normally in either a loaded car or on a motorcycle when I am on I-5. On the other hand I don't like "pay to play" access to let single occupant vehicles in the HOV lanes.

    Reply
  22. VolvoNut Avatar
    VolvoNut

    Here in Pittsburgh the HOV lanes change direction, inbound during the morning rush and outbound during the evening rush. To facilitate this there are gates that "automatically" shift the entrance and exit lanes.
    These gates are usually malfunctioning, so no one can use the HOV lanes, and they sit empty and unused.
    This pisses me off. The picture from Wikipedia clearly shows the empty HOV lanes in the center of the highway.
    <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Interstate_279.JPG/330px-Interstate_279.JPG"&gt;

    Reply
    1. dukeisduke Avatar
      dukeisduke

      That's the setup used on I-30 in Dallas, going from near downtown, eastward toward Mesquite. But they use a thing called a "zipper machine" (made in the UK, IIRC) which moves segmented New Jersey barrier, to open the lane to one direction or the other. Here's a picture of the segmented barrier:
      <img src="http://www.aaroads.com/texas/texas030/i-030_eb_exit_048a_01.jpg"&gt;
      And the zipper machine, operating near LBJ Freeway (I-635) in Mesquite:
      <img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7047/6862361939_9cd1b9e1d6_z.jpg"&gt;

      Reply
      1. Sjalabais Avatar
        Sjalabais

        I can image how driving that thing requires quite a bit of learning. And anti-seasickness-pills.

        Reply
        1. C³-Cool Cadillac Cat Avatar
          C³-Cool Cadillac Cat

          I don't know about now, but when it was first put into service, it didn't work more often than it did.
          That was a couple of decades ago, however…

          Reply
          1. Sjalabais Avatar
            Sjalabais

            British, you said?

      2. BobWellington Avatar
        BobWellington

        That is weirdly fascinating.

        Reply
  23. joshwebster84 Avatar
    joshwebster84

    The best thing about the HOV in Houston is that it is a motorcycle safe-zone. One lane, with barricades on either side an a narrow shoulder. I can get on there and relax, knowing that some asshole won't drift into my lane while taking an Instagram photo of fucking clouds or something while "driving".

    Reply
  24. stigshift Avatar
    stigshift

    I live in the Tampa bay area, where we don't have them. But why should they piss me off? Wait, it doesn't stand for "Hoon Operated Vehicles"? Ohhhh. Never mind.

    Reply
  25. joshuman Avatar
    joshuman

    I don't mind them at all in times of medium to heavy traffic. On I-90, I-5, and I-405 they seem to generally work well enough that the vehicles in the HOV lane enjoys a 5-10 mph advantage over the mainline. In light traffic, they can be annoying because it takes longer to pass slower vehicles if you are a single-occupant. The real advantage is skipping the metered on-ramps (this is heavily abused by some).
    One place where it really does not work around here is SR167 which took a three lane roadway and turned it into a two-lane mainline with a very limited access HOV lane. This single lane is also a possible toll road for anyone who wants to pay. This highway has a lot of truck traffic which bogs down the two-lane portion. The HOV lane also bogs down because some goofball wants to cruise along at 5 mph under the limit. Since there are only a few places to enter and exit the HOV lane, there is nowhere to pass and everybody suffers except the goofball.

    Reply
  26. C³-Cool Cadillac Cat Avatar
    C³-Cool Cadillac Cat

    This sums up my attitude:
    <img src="http://www.aerostich.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/6/2/627_1a.jpg&quot; width="650">
    I wonder where that shirt went, now that I think about it.

    Reply
  27. tiberiusẅisë Avatar
    tiberiusẅisë

    Yes they piss me off.
    I often travel the Long Island Expressway for work. Carpooling is not an option. The HOV lanes often move at about the same speed as the rest of traffic. The separate lane is pointless and the barrier (just a wide painted strip) just serves to prevent lane changes around slowpokes. To add insult to injury, the HOV lane , including the "barrier" is wide enough that it could be two lanes for regular travel.

    Reply
  28. jeepjeff Avatar
    jeepjeff

    Eh. The lesson I take from the "Traffic expands to fill all available lanes" is "don't be part of traffic". Do whatever you want, but I've carefully arranged my life so that I rarely hit traffic. Which means HOV lanes are often useless to me. In the Bay Area, the HOV lanes are only in effect during heavy traffic periods, so I can normally use them whenever I'm on the road. This also means they're largely useless to me.
    FWIW: single occupant hybrids aren't allowed in the HOV lanes in California anymore. In fact, that incentive expired nearly 2 years ago. EDIT: Natural gas and electric vehicles are, but they get silver stickers instead of gold. Also, at least here in California, this was always more about local air quality than carbon emissions or anything else.

    Reply
  29. K5ING Avatar
    K5ING

    While I've always been a little ticked off at HOV lanes, I think a better use for them would be as express lanes. I was in Ohio a number of years ago and one of the cities (Cincinnati I think) had Express lanes for vehicles just passing through the area. Virtually no exits at all. Here in the Dallas area, that would be great since we have tons of NAFTA trucks just passing through the area.
    <img src="http://www.roadfan.com/express.jpg&quot; width="600">

    Reply