Carpool lane violators will pay more for breaking the law
Published 1:30 am Monday, May 6, 2019
OLYMPIA — Carpool lane scofflaws, prepare to pay more if caught — especially if you try to outwit authorities by plopping a lifelike dummy in a passenger seat.
Under a bill awaiting the governor’s signature, a ticket will carry a $186 fine, up from the current $136. It will climb to $336 for each additional ticket a driver receives within two years.
Plus, a separate $200 penalty will be imposed on anyone caught using a mannequin or other human facsimile to make it appear that they have the requisite number of people required for traveling in one of the state’s high occupancy vehicle lanes.
Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign the bill in the coming days. Changes would take effect July 27.
Serial offenders frustrate the state’s congestion management efforts and “justifiably incite indignation and anger among fellow transportation system users,” lawmakers wrote in the opening section of Senate Bill 5695. The escalating penalty, they wrote, is intended “to rebuke and discourage such conduct.”
Sen. Marko Liias, D-Lynnwood, is the bill’s prime sponsor. Originally, he proposed penalties of $242 for a first offense, $499 for a second and $755 for a third. He didn’t oppose colleagues’ decision to reduce them. He was glad about an amendment for the added penalty for trying to elude punishment with a dummy.
“For me,” he said, “it’s been about the Interstate 405 toll lanes and how those who cheat drive up the tolls paid by other commuters.”
The legislation, Senate Bill 5695, directs 75 percent of revenue resulting from the fine increase into the state’s motor vehicle fund used to finance road and highway projects. The remainder will go into a new congestion relief and traffic safety account.
This could mean a few more dollars for improvements that help unclog choke points on the highway and a few more dollars for the Washington State Patrol to conduct targeted enforcement actions, Liias said.
“So if people follow the rules and there’s more (highway) capacity, it will lead to people getting through their commute a little more quickly,” Liias said.
The state patrol issued an average of 11,561 tickets a year for carpool lane violations from 2014 through 2018, according to data compiled in the Judicial Information System.
When troopers conducted a one-week emphasis patrol in central Puget Sound in September 2018, they stopped 1,758 drivers and issued 1,671 citations. They contacted 17 drivers twice and one driver three times, according to data compiled by the state patrol.
In the course of 2017 and 2018, the state patrol ticketed one person 12 times and another 11. There were 208 people nabbed four times, 50 people ticketed five times and 37 others pulled over between six and 10 times for violating the carpool lane requirements.
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@herald net.com. Twitter: @dospueblos.
