Safety and Efficiency of Utah’s Express Lanes

HOV lanes, or High Occupancy Vehicle lanes, first appeared in California in the 1970’s as a way to alleviate the increasing congestion on the freeways around the state. Ever since then, these lanes have become common in many states around the country, including Utah.

These carpool lanes make the highway system more efficient, and have shown to be just as safe, if not more, than the general lanes.

Utah’s Express Lanes

Utah has developed an express lane system that allows for carpoolers and other cars to drive in the express lane and rarely go below a speed of 55 mph. As of last year, these express lanes stretched over 62 miles of I-15 in Utah.

In order to use this lane a car must either have two or more passengers, an express pass, or have a “clean fuel” license plate. Motorcycles are also allowed to use this lane for free.

Efficiency of the Express Lane

These express lanes not only attempt to carry more people than the general lanes, but they also look to increase the average speed of the lane. The Utah Department of Transportation’s Executive Director reported that the average express lane is around 5 mph faster than the other lanes.

He also stated that the lanes move more people as the carpool lanes carry around 3,304 people per hour as compared to the general lanes that carry approximately 1,861 people per lane in an hour.

Safety of the Express Lane

Some might be skeptical of these increased speeds, thinking that they would in turn lead to more auto accidents. However, that does not seem to be the case. Results of several studies regarding HOV lanes have shown that these lanes are usually equally as safe, if not more safe than the general lanes.

These studies also found that the safest carpool lanes are ones that are separated from the general lanes by a concrete barrier. UDOT found that from 2009–2010, only 13 auto accidents of the 2,774 accidents on I-15 occurred in the carpool lanes. This means that only .5% of the auto accidents on I-15 were in the express lanes.

Sydney Smith is a legal writer reporter for Fusion 360, a Content Marketing Agency. Information provided by Robert J Debry.

Image Credit: Flickr, Wikipedia, 24SaltLake