Keeping The Riff-Raff Off The Roads

The latest attempt by CDOT to avoid building new roads is a requirement that anyone using a designated HOV lane is now required to have 3 people aboard. Since the 3 most popular vehicles in the U.S. are the Ford F150, the GM 1500, and the Dodge Ram 1500 in that order, if you plan to carpool to work, you'd better spring for one of the fancier models with 4 doors or else bold a seat into the bed. Your passengers can toss a coin to see who rides back there.

No Corvettes or other 2-seaters in the left lanes at all unless you bought the transponder option with the car. They don't call those things the Lexus Lanes for nothing.

By Federal Law, motorcycles are permitted in HOV lanes but if the HOV designation can be replaced with a tolling scheme, the motorcycles are booted out as well. Right now the extreme left lane on selected roads, formerly known as the breakdown lane, is HOV/Toll and fines are collected by camera. You'll get a bill for using the lane on your motorcycle because the software can't tell a 2 wheeler from an 18-wheeler, but you can use the lane for "free" if you buy a $35 transponder and attach it to your motorcycle presumably in a way that it won't get stolen.

I'm not sure if putting a child seat in the back of a pickup is actually legal, but at least it would be facing the right direction. If you have 2 kids and a standard pickup, both of them need to ride in the bed a la Subaru Brat as it's illegal for anyone to ride in a child seat in the front seat of anything.

At the rate we're going, in the near future, all roadways in Colorado will be toll roads unless you're transporting 2 or more illegals undocumented voters or are riding with your chauffeur and secretary.

I'm also pretty sure that except for agency vehicles, nobody who works for the Colo Dept of Transportation actually owns a car.