2,780 tickets handed out to HOV lane cheaters last year in B.C.

The number of drivers caught misusing HOV lanes has been on the decline in British Columbia – but police still handed out 2,780 tickets to HOV cheaters last year alone.

That's about half as many as police issued five years ago. Cpl. Mike Moore of the B.C. Highway Patrol couldn't say whether RCMP staffing challenges contributed to the drop in tickets. 

"(Officers are) doing the best they can every day and we're enforcing all the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act … and Criminal Code when we can," Moore told CTV News.

Ongoing enforcement efforts and the increasing popularity of electric vehicles – which are allowed in HOV lanes – likely contributed to the decrease, Moore added. 

Also allowed in HOV lanes are vehicles carrying two or more people, motorcycles and emergency vehicles. The province’s website says they were created to ease congestion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Summer is the peak season for HOV fines, according to ICBC statistics, with 306 tickets handed out last August and another 368 issued in September.

Moore said one way police can often spot an HOV cheater is when they are occupying the lane and "duck out really quick."

Some drivers have gone to great lengths to avoid getting dinged with the $109 fine, he added.

"We did confiscate a non-real person that was being masqueraded as an actual passenger in the front seat of a vehicle,” he said. "For the record, it has to be a living, actual person and not a dummy or a decoy."