Is it legal for police to drive in the carpool lane without two people in non-emergency situations?
A. Police and other emergency vehicles are allowed to drive in the HOV lanes regardless of whether or not they are responding to an emergency. Often times with the State Patrol, troopers are driving in the HOV lanes to enforce the HOV laws and to look for other traffic violations. Q. We’ve all been told the HOV lanes take cars off the road….Why then is a person driving with a child in the car allowed to drive in the HOV lanes. The child can’t drive, so that’s not taking a car off the road. A. HOV lanes have simple objectives: to maximize the number of people that can be carried on the highway and to provide a reliable trip to as many people as possible. Developing a more complicated definition of who is eligible to use HOV lanes would be difficult to explain and enforce and would reduce the number of people who benefit from the reliability that HOV lanes offer. Allowing adults with children to use the lanes enhances enforcement, simplicity, and efficiency.
