During commute times, I have noticed freight and tankers driving on HWY 154 between Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara. The road is a mountain pass with mostly one lane each. These trucks create hazardous conditions by driving up to 30 miles below the speed limit and failing to use designated turnouts (signage states that slow cars must pull out). They often create traffic jams that can cause the flow of traffic to come to a complete stop. The law states that you must pull over if you have at least 5 cars backed up behind you. The problem is that there are not enough safe turnouts going eastbound so that cars can be backed up to 20 cars on the grade. Also the trucks fail to pull over or they can't even make it up the grade. Even if highway patrol was to increase and cite these vehicles - there are not many safe places for them to be pulled over. I believe only exempting local trucking (ex. the gravel pit) that must use parts of 154 that trucks and tankers should use HWY 101. Already, haz-mat placarded vehicles are banned from HWY 154. I do not believe that the drivers of these trucks realize that it is a narrow mountain pass and officially forbidding them would be informative on their gps to reroute them to 2 lanes each on HWY 101. Impeding the flow of traffic creates more dangerous conditions as people try to pass in the few passing lanes after being slowed to 17 mph for 30-45 minutes. I believe it would be safer for automobiles and trucks if the trucks were banned.
