![]() ![]() So, for now at least, it’s up to the officers. The agency has experimented with camera technology along the lanes, but that technology failed to accurately determine how many occupants were inside cars during a pilot program, according to a 2011 agency report. No cameras are activated along the corridor to capture images of drivers cheating the system or their vehicle license plates, as red-light cameras do in many cities across North County, said Samuel Johnson of the San Diego Association of Governments, the regional agency that manages the express lanes. “Sometimes just driving through there is as much enforcement as you can do,” Bettencourt said of narrow freeway stretches.Īlthough at least one CHP officer is always assigned to the stretch of I-15 that includes the express lanes, such patrols are the only check on drivers trying to cheat the toll system. Much of the corridor is separated from the freeway’s outer lanes by concrete barriers, limiting the places where officers can pull over safely. We’re going to make mistakes every so often,” he added of the stop.īettencourt waited until finding a wide stretch on the express lanes before pulling the woman’s car over. It turned out the woman “had a little kid in the back seat,” Bettencourt said after the stop, noting he still checked the woman’s driver’s license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance (all standard requests, no matter whether a driver committed a traffic violation or not, the officer said). ![]() She was the only person pulled over during about an hour of patrols just after the morning rush. More information about how the lanes work is available at .ĭuring last week’s ride-along, Bettencourt pulled over a young woman who appeared to be driving alone in a Honda Accord, on suspicion of toll evasion. There are no toll booths on the corridor all payments are made electronically. The price to use the lanes ranges from 50 cents to $8, depending on how far a driver takes them and how crowded the lanes are. That’s the device that solo drivers must mount on their windshield to pay tolls as they pass under the corridor’s overhead electronic toll system. Officers get suspicious when a motorist appears to be driving alone in the express lanes but doesn’t have a FasTraktransponder. One of the biggest challenges for officers, Bettencourt added, is spotting young children in back seats and often out of view - sometimes hidden by tinted windows, which are legal for a vehicle’s back passenger windows. “We confiscate the mannequins,” he added, cruising along the lanes through Rancho Bernardo. ![]() Mannequins and pets don’t count as a car pool, Bettencourt noted. ![]() They must pull alongside cars to determine whether drivers are truly carpooling - it’s a minimum $401 fine (before court costs) for any violation in the lanes. Officers in the new $1.4 billion lanes, which stretch from Escondido to Kearny Mesa and were completed in January, must scan for more than just speeders and drunken drivers, said Bettencourt, an officer and spokesman for the agency. A North County Times reporter and photographer joined California Highway Patrol Officer Jim Bettencourt on a recent patrol of the express lanes to learn about the corridor and the unique enforcement challenges it presents. ![]()
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