Slug drivers are complaining that D.C. police are stepping up enforcement of the District's no stopping zone law, issuing $100 tickets to those pulling over along 14th Street to pick up carpoolers.
Police Chief Cathy Lanier told WTOP that while “there's been no change in what the normal enforcement has been,” she will check statistics to see if there has been an increase in ticketing.
Slugs are as much a part of life in D.C. as half smokes. (For the uninitiated, a half smoke is something you eat. A slug is not.) For decades, informal “slug lines,” where folks from Northern Virginia wait for a free morning commute ride to the Pentagon or into the District, have been in existence. Slugging began with the debut of the first High Occupancy Vehicle lane in 1971, and came into wider practice during the 1980s. The great site Slug-Lines.com has much more on slugging.
It’s a smart tradeoff that benefits everyone. Sluggers get to work for free, while saving the cost of gas. Their drivers get to use the HOV lanes. The region suffers fewer cars on the road, and therefore less traffic and less pollution. And, of course, it’s technically illegal.
The recent ticketing, which has impacted sluggers on their way home, is said to be linked to Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s recent complaint about congestion in the National Mall area. While Webb did not mention slugging -- which, of course, reduces congestion -- he is irked by tour buses that illegally park in no stopping zones. That got MPD to tighten its enforcement on anyone who stops there -- which means sluggers are getting nabbed.
Lanier told WTOP, “We try to balance everybody's needs -- the tour buses, the slug lines, those who are trying to commute back and forth.” She hardly seems to be hell-bent on penalizing commuters who are just trying to save money, gas, and time.
So it makes sense that the ticketing has gotten carpoolers talking about something that should have been done long ago: slug legalization.
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Tom Bridge wrote at WeLoveDC.com last week, “Slugging is a great method of informal carpooling that significantly lowers the amount of cars on the road. Perhaps a ‘slug zone’ on 14th street would help alleviate that?” DCist’s Kriston Capps agrees: “What would be the problem with making slug lines official? Drivers and riders -- if you will, the market -- has determined the need for carpooling and even solved it.”
It seems like no one really wants slug lines to go away, so now’s the time for the D.C. Council to make them legal.
