Just as you suspected: Carpool cheating is rampant, study shows

Scofflaws are not just rampant in the morning rush hours. Eastbound carpool lanes on In terstate 80 are also used for evening commutes: About 1 in 5 jam the diamond lane illegally. Scofflaws are not just rampant in the morning rush hours. Eastbound carpool lanes on In terstate 80 are also used for evening commutes: About 1 in 5 jam the diamond lane illegally. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close Just as you suspected: Carpool cheating is rampant, study shows 1 / 18 Back to Gallery

Law-abiding drivers have for years cursed, fumed and complained that the Bay Area’s carpool lanes are crowded with cheaters undeterred by the threat of getting busted. It turns out those observations are correct.

On average, 24 percent of the drivers in carpool lanes during the morning commute are there without the required number of passengers, a study by regional transportation officials found. During the evening crush, 19 percent of the carpool lane occupants are thumbing their noses at the law — and the poor suckers stuck in the slow lanes.

Regional transportation officials worry that the flood of carpool scofflaws will not only clog the lanes, but lead to a collapse of the system designed to entice drivers to haul along an extra passenger or two in exchange for a speedier commute.

“Our fear is that the cheat level gets so high that everyone feels the only people not in the carpool lanes are chumps,” said Randy Rentschler, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which ordered the study.

The findings, to be presented to an MTC committee Friday, come from a comprehensive survey that placed teams of observers on overpasses above carpool lanes at 83 locations around the Bay Area. Each person was assigned a lane and counted passengers manually. In addition, video cameras were used to help identify the number of vehicles with green and white clean-air decals that allow them to use the lanes no matter how many people are in them.

While far more thorough, the study results mirror the findings of a Chronicle report in December that found a quarter to a third of drivers in the carpool lanes on westbound Interstate 80 in Berkeley were using the lanes illegally.

Drivers just off I-80 in Emeryville on Thursday said they were not surprised at the number of fraudulent carpoolers found in the MTC study.

Terry Hartzler, a development operations engineer, lives in Redwood Shores and commutes to Emeryville but used to drive to the South Bay. He said the cheating seems to be worse in the South Bay than the East Bay. And even though he doesn’t like the idea of carpool lanes, he hates the idea of people breaking the law to use them even more.

“It bothers me,” he said. “I don’t like the fact that so many people are cheating.”

Attorney who cheats

Jeni Deal, 30, who drove to Emeryville from San Carlos to attend a conference, said she knows an attorney who cheats regularly, figuring the time saved in the carpool lane is worth the risk of a fine that starts at $380 before court costs and assorted fees.

But she said she is also offended by the cheating. “It just doesn’t feel right,” she said.

Even out-of-state visitors like Curtis Brown, a 59-year-old project manager from Chicago, have observed the abundance of lawbreakers in the carpool lanes.

“I noticed that about 20 percent of the drivers were not in the proper lane,” he said. “It kind of annoyed me. I thought they would be strict about enforcing the law.”

California Highway Patrol officials insist they are strict. But John Fransen, a CHP spokesman for the Bay Area, said the carpool lane law is just one of many laws the agency is mandated to enforce.

“That doesn’t mean carpool violation is not a concern,” he said. “As traffic gets worse, more people weigh that option, consider the risk and decide it might be worth taking.”

CHP officers routinely look for carpool lane lawbreakers, Fransen said, and the agency intermittently stages crackdowns in which officers, mainly on motorcycles, swarm the highways in search of violators. But he knows that a growing number of frustrated solo drivers seem to be willing to pull into the carpool lane.

“They’re playing the odds,” he said. “But, as with anything, people who continually press their luck are eventually going to get caught.”

U.S. standards not met

Carpoolers are already paying the price for cheaters, whose presence slows down the lanes. Federal officials have noticed. A 2014 Caltrans report concluded that 58 percent of Bay Area carpool lanes failed to meet federal standards that require speeds of 45 mph or more 90 percent of the time. Seventy-four percent more of the Bay Area’s carpool lanes failed to meet that standard than in 2013.

Continuing to fall short of those standards could, in theory, lead to a loss of federal highway funds, said Nancy Singer, a Federal Highway Administration spokeswoman, but the agency would prefer to work with Caltrans to get the carpool lanes moving.

What’s more likely, Bay Area transportation officials say, is that the feds could order California to kick low-emission vehicles out of the diamond lanes or require cars to carry more passengers to use the lanes.

The number of electric and other low-emission vehicles granted stickers for access to carpool lanes is surging in the Bay Area, the study found. The share of clean-air vehicles registered in the nine-county region is up 175 percent over the past two years, and the Bay Area’s share of the green vehicles is highest in the state.

The study found that 8 percent of the vehicles in the average Bay Area carpool lane are clean-air cars and trucks. At five locations, four on the Peninsula or in the South Bay, the clean-car drivers make up more than 10 percent of the carpool-lane traffic.

May make a difference

Ending their access to carpool lanes could make a difference. Research shows that removing 10 percent of traffic can increase the speed of traffic by as much as 18 percent.

“If you get rid of the electric cars, it helps,” Rentschler said, “But the elephant in the room is the violators.”