[InterceptPoint]

$300,000 to study the effectiveness of HOV lanes

If this was an honest study then it would be well worth the $300,000 and I would gladly pay my fair share. The problem with Diamond Lanes (California's version of HOV lanes) is that:

1. They Are Dangerous How would you like to drive 85-90 miles an hour in the left (Diamond) lane with traffic crawling along at 20 MHP or dead stopped one lane over? What happens is that some jerk decides he will jump into the Diamond lane and won't see you closing on him. Result: Unexpected and instant death for both of you. Happens all the time in LA

2.They Make Traffic Worse, Not Better. The reason is that for most of the day they are hardly used and the space allocated to them is as much as 40 percent of the highway in places where that one Diamond lane consumes the equivalent of two and half lanes. Check out the 55 Freeway in LA and you will see what I mean.

$300,000 is cheap to get rid of the mess that Diamond Lanes have made of Southern California driving.

[sixgunjer]

Agree on your two points on HOV lanes.

HOV lanes are nothing more than social-engineering by the ageing hippies running the state. I'm surprized the signs describing the fines aren't tie-dyed.

Not only are they dangerous for the reasons you described, they are frustrating because you are trapped by the double-yellow lines whilst a '65 Datsun pickup with 4 "gardners," (ahem) and 6 lawnmowers plugs along at 45 mph.

I suspect that a good portion of our traffic problems would be solved by erasing the HOV lanes and opening them up to all traffic.

Let the Datsun drive on the shoulder where it belongs.