Q: Jason Scott of Corona said he drives Inland Empire freeways that are frequently congested. While driving along slowly in traffic, he said, he often looks over at the carpool lane. “I notice each time that over 50% of the vehicles have one person in them. I do understand I may not see a driver’s child in the back or shorter passenger. I also cannot see the passenger seat when the passenger side of the windshield is blocked.”
Scott said he’s never seen a vehicle get pulled over for having just one person in the carpool lane. He asked how many tickets for not having at least two people in a vehicle have been written in Riverside County and in the state of California during the last three years.
A: Our reader acknowledged that Riverside County is very large, and that he realizes accident investigations and helping motorists in trouble are the California Highway Patrol’s main priorities. Our reader also acknowledged that the CHP has been short staffed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of the CHP training academy in Sacramento. But he said he observed this before the pandemic.
Let’s explain. The CHP Inland Division covers an area larger than 12 states that also has some of the nation’s most congested freeways, including the 10, 15, 215, freeways and the 91 and 60, to name some. Many areas in the division are desert, or sparsely populated locations where drivers tend to speed. The CHP Inland Division has 11 offices located in Bridgeport, Bishop, Mojave, Needles, Barstow, Riverside, Victorville, Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino, Arrowhead and the Morongo Basin. The division covers Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Some of these areas don’t have carpool lanes.
Answering this reader’s question with regard to numbers is difficult. These numbers are not all kept in one place, and would take some time to track down to be able to prove or disprove that the CHP is ticketing carpool lane violators.
With that said, we collected the data our reader requested from the CHP Riverside office, which covers Riverside, Perris, Nuevo, Moreno Valley and a few other small areas in this region. CHP Riverside area officers issued 2,698 carpool violations in 2019; 2,595 carpool violations in 2020; and 2,006 so far this year, as of Aug. 24.
“We actively enforce carpool violations,” said CHP Officer Juan Quintero, a public information officer in the Riverside office. “However, as an officer safety practice, it is not uncommon for CHP officers to initiate traffic stops on the freeway, and have the violator exit the freeway to complete the traffic stop. As a result, it might seem that we are not actively patrolling and enforcing the vehicle code,” Quintero said.
Quintero made a good point: a CHP officer cannot pull over a carpool lane violator on a moving freeway to issue a ticket. The officer has to direct the offending vehicle off to a shoulder, or off the freeway to pull the vehicle over. If you were to see a CHP car with a stopped vehicle on a freeway off-ramp, how would you know what that driver was being ticketed for?
Quintero said he was unable to pull the statewide numbers. For further data regarding statewide statistics, our reader may submit a records request to the CHP in Sacramento.
Do you commute to work in the Inland Empire? Spend a lot of time in your vehicle? Have questions about driving, freeways, toll roads or parking? If so, write or call On the Road and we’ll try to answer your questions. Please include your question or issue, name, city of residence, phone number and email address. Write ontheroad@pe.com or call 951-368-9670.
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September 16, 2021 at 10:00PM
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Questions about carpool lane violations in the Inland Empire, how often do they occur? - Press-Enterprise
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