Tickets to Rise

O Canada: Toronto carpool violator
with two mannequins (cbc.ca)

Few "crimes" trigger as much outrage as carpool-lane violations. Like tax cheats and illegal immigrants, most carpool scofflaws don't actually cause death or serious injury to the law-abiding population.

So why the anger? I suspect it's a combination of the following:

1) Not respecting the cultural norm that everyone should obey the law, even the laws that they disagree with;

2) Taking advantage of the high likelihood that they won't get caught (most of the law-abiding are aware of the probabilities, too);

3) Resentment of the implication that the lawbreakers' time or money is more important than yours.

Besides the above, there's this: cutting in line drives a lot of people crazy.

As traffic has gotten much worse, it's now been documented that Bay Area carpool cheats are on the rise.

multiple counts of vehicles in the diamond lanes [on Hwy 80 near Berkeley] between 8:15 and 9:45 a.m. found violation rates ranging from 18 to 41 percent. During most of the counts, a quarter to a third of the drivers in the carpool lanes appeared to be there illegally.

While technology has improved to the point where cameras can spot cheaters with 95% accuracy, "California law doesn’t allow camera-based traffic enforcement other than for red-light running."

If there are adequate safeguards against the technology being used as a government revenue-enhancer, the swelling anger will be irresistible. Look for the laws to change and both penalties and the number of tickets to rise.