Driver dressed up skeleton in passenger seat to drive in carpool lane, WA trooper says
A driver thought it would be easy to fool Washington state police.
But a trooper saw through the ploy to drive in the carpool lane without a second occupant.
A trooper pulled over the driver on Feb. 14 around 2 p.m. on Interstate 405 near Coal Creek Parkway and saw a fake skeleton, Washington State Patrol trooper Rick Johnson told McClatchy News.
It was dressed in a neon sweatshirt and buckled into the passenger seat, a Twitter photo shows.
Johnson said the driver was cited with a traffic infraction.
High occupancy vehicle lanes in Washington are lanes reserved for vehicles that are carpooling or for vanpools, buses and motorcycles.
A skeleton doesn’t count as an occupant.
And neither does a body.
A hearse driver was pulled over in Nevada for using the HOV lane, The Sacramento Bee reported in 2019. The driver told officers he thought a dead person counted as an occupant in the vehicle.
In Washington, HOV violations are now reported to a driver’s insurance company, Johnson said. They get pricier each time a violation is committed within a “certain period,” he said.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 7:45 PM with the headline "Driver dressed up skeleton in passenger seat to drive in carpool lane, WA trooper says."
