Is State Route 175 the most expensive toll road in California?
On a beautiful January day, my father and I were driving to Lakeport to view a National High School Rodeo Association competition. My daughter was participating; dad had come from Colorado to see his granddaughter compete. We were making the drive from the San Francisco Bay Area.
We drove on 101N, and then took the Highway 175 split out of Hopland, a small and winding freeway that goes up and over the foothills leading to Clear Lake. While driving the rental car, my 82 year-old dad turned onto the short mountain pass. He insisted on driving; he loves to drive and is a strong, fit man. The road was narrow, the turns were tight, but he proceeded slowly and carefully. We did not see any cars ahead of us, or behind us for the entire stretch of curvy road. We made it over without incident, enjoying the mossy oak-studded scenery.
At the first pullout available for miles, nearing the bottom of the pass, two highway patrol cars were parked. They flagged us over and directed us to pull behind another car on the pullout. We thought that perhaps there was a problem with the road ahead. Surely we had not done anything to warrant a citation.
The officer stated that the air patrol reported that our vehicle had crossed over the double-yellow line. He began to write a citation. I was dumb-founded! We were driving cautiously on a virtually deserted mountain pass road; how could we be fined for this? Obviously there was no intentional crossing, as we had no interest in colliding with any vehicle that might have come around any one of the miles of curves. In fact, I believe that not touching the line while negotiating the challenging road seemed like a near impossible feat.
As we sat waiting for the ticket, two more vehicles were pulled over. Each driver misjudging the arc of a curve, while negotiating this challenging road, and spied on for errors by the looming air patrol, was fined. It was a blatant trap for all who drove the road. It became clear to me that this was the easiest sure-fire trap for state patrol to generate revenue in this rural area.
I was left with a feeling of being pirated. How much revenue is generated from this air-patrol plan? The fine for our ticket was $201. How is it possible that our law enforcement is now so pressed with making ticket quotas that they must trap unsuspecting travelers in this way?
There is a great California Gold Rush history including miners, farmers, and robbers in those foothills. But this experience left me wondering:
Who are the cops and who are the robbers now?
Barbara Christman
Los Gatos
