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HOV has never worked

Dear Editor:It’s time to discontinue the so-called HOV lanes!In response to the Sept. 13 editorial in The Aspen Times titled, “HOV? Hah! Give us a break!”They were a poorly thought-out and planned idea to begin with! All it seems to do is re-enforce bad driving, like staying in the left lane all the way to Rifle and obstructing those who want to pass. It is a daily occurrence between Glenwood and Basalt to find five to 20 vehicles backed up behind someone in the left lane who is making no attempt to pass anyone. It frequently takes MILES before there is an opportunity to pass the jerk by using the right lane. I believe in part this is due to the conditioning caused by the HOV lanes.I quit observing the HOV lanes years ago. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come upon a car packed with those from south of the border, the only ones that consistently carpool, that are driving less speed than the surrounding traffic, and they are NOT in the HOV! So everyone goes around them when they get the chance. So what is the point if those that ARE carpooling choose to NOT use the HOV lane and obstruct traffic in the left lane?Those that are plugging up the lane and “cheating,” as you say, at the bottle necks, are the same types that were plugging up the bottleneck at Gerbaz for years during the canyon construction. Putting a cop out there to stop it won’t do any good. Then you just move the bottleneck back to a point before where the cop is sitting. What’s the difference? If anything, the drive will take even longer and the cops will likely write few tickets because they will be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers! Even if the cops start writing more tickets, then you will have more people slowing down traffic because they are being looky-loos or are paranoid, instead of paying attention to the road and moving on. Then you have even longer drive times!Patients and courtesy would do wonders at the bottlenecks, but those behaviors disappeared along with intelligent driving years ago!Lee PerkinsGlenwood Springs

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