Busted

My friend and former coworker, H we'll call her, sent me a link today to an article about cops having an increase in HOV violation busts in the area. (http://www.wtop.com/?nid=41&sid=2421793). The subject title of her email was "because you are the maven of all things commute related." Made me laugh. Then I thought about it and I laughed some more because how did I become the person who everyone comes to with their commuting stories. It's kind of funny. (Thanks H.) But I get pretty into it when people complain about commuting in this area. And I can usually relate. Enter slugging sales pitch here. I should really be their marketing cover girl. If "slugging" was a company. Or a formal thing at all.

Regarding the HOV violations and the cops being on increased patrol of the HOV lanes, it's definitely true. I see them out there all the time. I saw two cars pulled over this morning getting tickets for not having the necessary number of people in their car.

To ride on the HOV lane, there must be 3 people in your car. Thre are a couple of exceptions:

1. If you are a cab, you only need two riders.

2. If your car is a hybrid, you can ride on the HOV lanes regardless of how many people are in your car.

3. Motorcycles are also allowed on the HOV lanes.

It's pretty often, too, that the cops will just stand at the exits from the HOV lane and check out each car as it goes by to make sure they aren't violating the HOV restrictions. Personally, I would never take that risk because as you can see in the article, the fines are pretty lofty:

First offense is a $125 fine;

Second offense is a $250 fine, plus three points;

Third offense is a $500 fine, plus three points;

Fourth offense is a $1,000 fine, plus three points

And with my luck, the one time I would try to break the rule the cops would be there waiting for me. Whenever I see people pulled over for that violation on the HOV lanes I wonder what they were thinking and if it's their first offense. No way I'd want to pay $250 after already being caught for that once. I hope they had somewhere really important to be and were just desperate in the horrible 395 afternoon traffic.

But I find myself being biased and first thinking that they probably do it all the time and just never thought they'd get caught. Then I get mad because those people add to the HOV lane clogs that happen occasionally. Maybe if those people weren't breaking the ruuuule we'd always be going 75 mph on the HOV lane instead of having some delays.

So I don't feel bad when I see them pulled over by the cops. Not fun for them though. Especially if they've made it all the way to the HOV exit and they're probably thinking to themselves, "haha didn't get caught again!" That's kind of humorous of the cops, actually. Let them enjoy the ride then slap them with the fine. Touche.

S the Good Samaritan

Sadly, I don't work with S (P.S. check out her blog!) anymore so we don't walk to the slug line together anymore, either. But she told  me about her slugging experience today because it had to do with the line I used to go to. It used to take longer for my line to get rides than the line S was in. Our slug lot is huge and there's a wide array of destinations that the drivers go to from there in the morning, mostly in DC. However, in the afternoon standing at the slug line, there's two lines. The other line gets more rides because it's closer to the exit from the HOV lanes (see this post) and I think drivers want to get the strangers out of their car sooner rather than later, plus they often have other places to go in the afternoon than all the way to our slug lot, about 4 miles down the road.

Anyways, for whatever reason, there's less drivers that go to my slug lot in the afternoon from DC than there appear to be for this other slug lot. I know for a fact that some drivers who leave from my slug lot, take riders back to the other slug lot in the afternoon. I've seen some of the drivers as they call out the name of the other slug lot and recognize them as drivers that leave from mine in the morning.

So it's a running joke between S and I, when we show up to the afternoon slug line and my line is short and hers is extremely long. When she looks at me with sad, puppy face, I just yell back to her 20 people away, that she'll still be in a car before me, so she should be quiet. And it usually happened that way. (It should be noted that it wasn't this long of a wait every day, but it was always the other line that went faster than ours. It was like we were the last ones picked in kickball, sometimes.)

This picture was just funny. 

So finally, to the point of the story: S was driving by the afternoon slug line about two minutes before 6pm when the HOV lanes open to everyone, and she saw two slugs standing in "my" line still waiting. She decided to pick them up, the Good Samaritan that she is, because she knew the pain I sometimes went through as a Rolling Valley rider. When they got in, she told them that her friend goes to RV and she knows it's always harder to get a ride. They replied, "Oh, so you've heard our RV sob stories. Tell your friend, thank you. We really appreciate this ride."

Slugging is a very humbling way to commute. You really are eternally grateful when you get a ride after waiting for a while, or when it's really hot (or cold) out, or you really have somewhere you need to be. Some days are better than others, so it makes it all worthwhile, but on days like this where the riders were still waiting for a ride at 5:58pm, the gratitude oozes out of you. And oh yeah, it's free. Did I mention that?

Origination of the Term "Slugging"

There's not much written about slugging. Most of the information comes from the website www.slug-lines.com started by David LeBlanc who also wrote a book called "Slugging: The Commuting Alternative for Washington D.C." published in 1999. The website is very informative for slugs and gives news updates in case there are any changes made to the lots, etc.

According to his information, slugging actually started around 35 years ago after the HOV lanes were opened. It began with the HOV lanes and drivers who didn't have the required total 3 passengers to take the HOV lanes. They would drive by bus stops and offer rides to people in order to meet the requirement. Eventually some people decided to take the free ride even though it was being offered by a stranger, either due to long waits for the bus or perhaps the weather conditions influenced them. Word spread and eventually that's how slugging came about. Slugging is very much a word-of-mouth system and the origins are a bit vague being that there's no real government documentation regarding the beginning of slugging.

The origination of the term "slugging" is given on the website run by LeBlanc, and was apparently coined by bus drivers who were at first confused by the people standing in line at the bus stop who never actually took the bus. Since the riders were originally picked up from bus stops, and word began to spread that people could get free rides into DC, or mostly the Pentagon at that time, by waiting there, that's where the lines began. The bus drivers would pass by and stop because they saw people waiting, and the slugs would wave them away. The bus drivers eventually began to recognize who was a "real" bus rider and who wasn't and started to call them "slugs" because that was the term for fake bus tokens.

More to come on the history of slugging, but the origination of the term is one of the most frequently asked questions I get about slugging.