ANYONE who supports HOV lanes has a lunatic hiding in the closet between their ears. HOV lanes do nearly NOTHING to alleviate freeway congestion. If anything, they exacerbate it -- and increase the potential for accidents between vehicles having substantial differences in speed -- by creating a situation where HOV lane users have to merge into and back out of the HOV lane through sluggish traffic. So, every place along the length of the HOV lane where drivers are allowed to merge in and out, turns into a "brake check" with taillights glaring brightly and the more than occasional rear-end collisions.
These things aren't a net benefit; they're a net detriment and, at least in this case, advocacy equals idiocy.
Yes, so it often ends up the HOV lane carries fewer cars (and, in fact, fewer people) while running at about the same speed as the #1 lane.