"8 Mile Backup" ?

If you are on the HOV On-Ramp and you are not driving a Hybrid and do not have 3 people in your vehicle.....you have every intention of breaking the law!

If you are coming off of the HOV lanes and you are not driving a Hybrid and do not have 3 people in your vehicle.....you have broken the law!

I was late to work this morning as well and I agree that enforcement could have been handled differently. However, if you start attacking the methods of the State Police you risk losing their support and the HOV lanes will again become overcrowded with violators.

If the law is a problem, it can be changed.

And is it really the law that a person is not violating HOV until they are actually ON HOV? If that was the case, what have the police been doing when they set up their stings on the entrance and exit ramps?

But if the law really is a problem, you can either:

a) make it a violation to be on an HOV entrance ramp in addition to the HOV, or;

b) make a new offense called "Attempted HOV violation" to write for single riders on entrance ramps during HOV hours.

If this was the State Police's solution to dealing with HOV violators, then we need some new police. This has to be the most boneheaded thing I've ever seen.

How about posting officers at exits where traffic is slow anyway - and maybe use some technology like a red-light camera? Maybe some really stiff fines would help - like 1 violation = $500, 2nd violation you lose your license for 6 months.

This is the letter I sent to VDOT, The Washingtonpost, Gov. Warner and the Va State Police:

Although I heartily agree in principal with enforcing HOV restrictions, there must be a better way of doing so without causing over 100,000 people to be late for work. This morning myself, the three other people in the car with me and the 50,000 or so other cars (most of which were carrying a minimum of four people) in the HOV lanes of I-95 were delayed by at least an hour because of HOV enforcement.

I'd like to know how the proceeds from HOV violation tickets reconciles with the hundred thousand or more man-hours lost by this debacle.

Those of us who play by the rules, car or van-pool, use slug lines or drive hybrids should not be penalized for the actions of the relatively few who violate the law. Is there no way to enforce these restrictions other than severely impacting the commutes of law abiding drivers? Especially during a week in which the only alternative transportation system, VRE, was rendered dysfunctional due to track and switch problems. For crying out loud, does no one in your office read the news?

Patrick Bergin
Senior Network Operations Engineer
Highland Technology Services Inc.
202-586-7504

Curtis Bailey is the public affairs officer and the one they quoted in WTOP. I emailed him. His info is: curtis.bailey@vsp.virginia.gov