Speeding drivers late at night are a dangerous nuisance

QAny chance you could get the CHP to patrol Highway 24 more often? I’m a nurse who commutes home around midnight. With the increase in commuters who live out in far-flung communities, it has now become routine to be passed by multiple vehicles driving at least 90 mph.

In addition, they swerve in and out of traffic, as they are too impatient to wait for anyone to move over, so you are no safer in the slow lanes than you are in the fast lanes.

I never see CHP between the Caldecott Tunnel and Highway 242. — Rachel Johnson

AThe CHP has received safety grants for overtime to put more officers on the road to clamp down on these speeders, so you may see more troopers. But other drivers are also concerned.

QI’m driving down Highway 101 from San Francisco to Mountain View around 11 p.m., going 65 or so in the slow lanes. Not once, not twice but numerous times a flashy car cuts me off going maybe 85 mph as the driver zips across all lanes. … So many SUVs are going 80 or faster when traffic is lighter in the wee hours of the morning, putting others like me at great risk on Interstate 880. — Fred Hastings, Bill Wu and others

AFolks, slow down, especially when traveling this holiday weekend. Please.

QMy son has been getting a ride from San Luis Obispo from a former roommate who lives in Oakland and drives a fast Mercedes-Benz. This fellow not only drives crazily fast but is using his phone (to text or view or whatever) while driving crazy fast. He was going over 90-plus mph on Highway 101 when traffic was going around 70.

One day, this fellow asked my son to fill his tank. He said he would only pay to fill the tank if the driver would stay off the phone on the way back to Oakland. The fellow obliged. My son was annoyed that it cost him $60-plus to fill the tank, but my husband and I were happy that our son framed the fill-up with a “no phone” pledge. — Jill D., Walnut Creek

ASmart son. The fast driver should buy him dinner for perhaps saving his life by getting him to realize the risks he poses.

QI suggest most of the commotion about metering lights could be eliminated if the state got rid of toll plazas on Bay Area bridges and went to open road tolling.

I’ve driven many times on the tollways around Chicago. Simply stated, traffic rolls along with those few cars not equipped with an I-Pass slowly creeping through the toll booth. Illinois gives drivers an incentive for using the I-Pass: a substantial discount off the tolls. Is this too logical a solution for California to implement? — Lou Harris, San Mateo

ANo. Toll lanes will largely be removed in a few more years.