I'm driving into the office two hour earlier than usual because I have to participate in some interoperability testing. I pull onto I-95 and get into the inside lane as I usually do. Traffic is a bit thick, but it's flowing albeit a bit slower than I'm used to.
A few miles down the road, I see a state trooper giving a ticket. They got pulled over for **speeding?** I think to myself. **At best** traffic is moving at the posted speed limit. I keep driving.
A few miles further down, and again, off to the side are three unmarked state troopers, just sitting there. I know they're unmarked state troopers because each vehicle has red and blue lights mounted inside the windows. And to further hide the fact that they're unmarked state troopers, all the lights on all three vehicles are flashing. How odd, I think to myself. They pulled each other over?
About two miles short of the exit, I noticed that the other three lanes of traffic are significantly crowded, yet the inside lane I'm in is relatively free of cars. Not so free that I can zip down the interstate at a hundred and eight, but enough that I'm making excellent time compared to the cars in the other three lanes of traffic.
It's then I had an epiphany: I bet I'm in the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane, I thought, just as I passed under the “HOV Lane, 7:00am—9:00am 4:00pm—6:00pm” sign.
Facepalm.