Tractor Trailers on the HOV Lanes

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Originally posted by 122582
[br]And of course, the root cause of this morning's accident will be either distracted driver (cell phone) or going too fast for conditions.

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Maybe, but there have also been crashes where the driver had physical problems. Remember the gasoline truck near the Pentagon? Last February? the driver died of a heart attack.

If the cause was physical, maybe there should be stricter physical requirements for truckers and tighter control on driving time.

Pay me now or pay me later. Get quality drivers or pass the cost on to the motoring public.

CVS and Giant have some of the safest drivers on the road. Their driving programs are unmatched in the industry. Except maybe for the moving van company in Springfield. Name escapes me. But the owner is Arthur Morisette (??)

dickboyd@aol.com

FWIW, in Hampton Roads (site of the other extensive deployment of HOV lanes) NO commercial trucks are allowed and signage explicitely says so. I've always wondered why they were allowed up here -- especially after almost being run off the road twice by one drifting into my lane on 395...

- Will

Oh, don't hold your breath, Shipm8s. The Toll Roads are going to materialize, right before your very eyes. They are coming. That sound you hear is the marshaling of the arguments against HOV.

Consider that the dean of traffic engineering in Virginia is a UVA professor by the name of Hoel. Lester Hoel, to be exact. (http://cts.virginia.edu/Hoel.htm if you're curious)

And consider this statement from the precis of Professor Hoel's 2002 study of the HOV lanes on I-64:
"it is found that the HOV lane of I-64 in Hampton Roads area provides some travel timesavings and a more reliable trip time to the HOV lane travelers. But the time saving is small, and the HOV lane is not efficient for the whole freeway facility. There is the HOV lane underutilization problem."

Ah, the old "unused capacity" canard again. The solution they offer for this is always the same: let rich people buy the unused portion of the public pie. The solution should be: let's make it easier for people to ride-share.

Anyway, on with Dr. Hoel's paper:
"Two improvement alternatives are considered: change the current HOV lane to another general-purpose lane, which can reduce the vehicles in queue per lane by twelve percent, or to the HOT 2+ lane, which can eliminate the vehicles in queue per lane by applying real time value pricing strategy."

Here, folks, is the twisted root of the whole blasted Toll Road fiasco. When the smartest traffic engineer at your best state university says HOV doesn't work and we need to consider a "value pricing strategy," well, who's gonna argue with him?

The problem is, his engineering-based bean-counting methodologies don't accept the awkward variables of human behavior. What price the loss of our public spaces? What price for taking our roads from the poorest citizens and reserving them for the well-off? How does this make us a better Commonwealth?

An update to the tractor trailers in HOV lanes: I spoke with Delegate Scott Lingamfelter (R-31) at work after the accident and he said that he'd put in a bill to keep trucks and tractor trailers off the HOV lanes. The VA House Cmte on Transportation tabled a similar measure back in January 2005 (HB 1528), but who knows, maybe after this accident, we can resurrect it and get it passed. Use the internet to find your delegate (http://legis.state.va.us/) and send them an email!

It's simple: If HOV restricts vehicles to a minimum of three occupants, then ALL vehicles, including commercial trucks and hybrids, should be required to carry 3 people while in HOV lanes.