From HOV Lanes Linked to Rise In Car Crashes:
Why might HOV lanes cause accidents? When the lanes are not separated by concrete barriers, drivers often illegally weave between the regular and HOV lanes, says Scott Cooner, a program manager for the Texas Transportation Institute, part of the Texas A&M University system. What is more, drivers stuck in gridlock tend to be resentful of the fast-moving HOV traffic and won’t let drivers merge from the high-speed lanes back onto the regular freeway, causing accidents.Putting HOV lanes next to regular lanes violates a basic rule of traffic engineering: Don’t put cars moving at vastly different speeds next to each other.