Does Highway Patrol Ever Ticket Carpool Lane Violators (California)?

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I solo commute daily on a Southern California freeway that has a carpool (HOV) lane. After years of sitting in traffic and watching the carpool drivers fly past me, often with only a single occupant in the car, I got to wondering whether or not this is actually enforced.

I get that you can be pulled over for something else (e.g. speeding), and then have the carpool violation added on for an extra big fine, but does anyone actually get pulled over for driving solo in the carpool lane?

Comments

  1. NobodyLikedThat1 Avatar

    sure. There’s a specific spot in the greater LA area where the HOV goes from 2 to 1 lane, so it’s a huge bottleneck and traffic slows to a crawl. So CHP sets up right there since they can easily see into the car and look for a 2nd person (assuming it’s not tinted to death, which is it’s own violation).

  2. Whatever92592 Avatar

    Of course they do. I’m sure you’ve also noticed the lack of CHP vehicles on the freeway.

    Short staffed. Bigger fish to fry.

  3. StephanNoodles Avatar

    I saw nine traffic stops by CHP doing nothing but carpool lane violations on the 405 last Tuesday. They got the cars in front and back of me at one point. Was nice to see.

  4. Straight_Ostrich_257 Avatar

    I cite HOV violations every time. The issue is that in a given area of LA there are maybe 1,000,000 vehicles that pass through and about 10 CHP officers.

  5. Commercial_Rule_7823 Avatar

    Daily.

    Seems to go in waves or sections

    Ill go weeks not seeing one, then it seems like a few days in a row, that section gets rolled.

    Its a pricey ticket.

  6. boferd Avatar

    im not LE, just a lurker. i used to live in southern california and i had a looooong commute to my job at the time and eventually decided to start hopping in the carpool lane occasionally instead of sitting in stopped traffic. i got caught twice and ticketed twice for carpool violations. learned my lesson after the second ticket. don’t do it man. they will get you and it’s pricey as hell.

  7. Paladin_127 Avatar

    They do- but having grown up in SoCal myself, there aren’t just enough CHP officers to handle the literal millions of vehicles on the road during rush hour spread across a dozen freeways. By policy, they will cite every HOV violator they catch, and it’s an expensive ticket.

    Now I live in Northern California where the nearest HOV lane is about 200 miles away.