I’ve heard urban legends about this, but this the first time I’ve actually come across it.
You can’t drive in the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane on the major commuter routes unless you have at least two people (and ideally more) in the car. The Powers That Be want to encourage carpooling to alleviate traffic congestion. So people make jokes about driving in with a cardboard cutout or a mannequin. I didn’t think anyone would actually do it.
The mannequin she used is pretty good – it looks like an old guy, sleeping. What gave it away were the hands, which were unnaturally posed as if they were suspended in midair.
Moral: don’t do this, or tie the hands down if you do.
Someone else was caught doing the same in New York earlier this year:
It was actually a guy driving a hearse. The judge ruled that the deceased was cargo and not a passenger.
We seem to get a dummy passenger story every other month here on Long Island. It’s not an urban legend. It usually makes the papers as well as the local cable news channel.
This was back in the ‘80s: my best friend had a sister who died of leukemia at age three. His mom kept a doll in the car to put in the car seat so she could use the commuter lane driving to and from the childrens’ hospital. I’m not saying she was right or wrong, but I never had a problem with it. She never got caught.
There used to be an UL inthe DC area that you could buy a dummy that was completly realistic, and even produced the heat signature of a human to fool the special scanners they were supposedly using. But I’ve never actually seen one for sale. Not that I wanted one. . . ::whistles::
And that still seems low to me. Last I checked, simple HOV violations were like $350 (e.g. you didn’t realize it was 3:40 or you were just passing). It seems that intentionally gaming the system would be much worse. Here, it’s just typical Bay overpricedness.
What I loved was the last line of the story: she can get the mannequin back once she pays the fine. (I’m curious what provision of the law allowed for it to be confiscated to begin with.)
