Skeleton crew: California driver nabbed for using carpool lane with plastic effigy

Drivers looking to beat California’s endless traffic can use designated carpool lanes, provided they have others in their car. But there’s one pesky requirement: those other people have to be alive.

That was not the case for a driver stopped this weekend near San Jose for using a fake companion , police say. Riding in the passenger seat was a plastic skeleton. In an apparent effort to add to the illusion, the skeleton was wearing a mask with a giant mouth, reminiscent of the Scream films.

“While #spookyseason is upon us, it’s important to remember that decorations being transported in the passenger seat do not qualify to meet carpool requirements,” the California highway patrol (CHP) wrote on Facebook . The driver has not been publicly identified.

Carpool lanes, or high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, aim to incentivize ridesharing, easing traffic and “maximizing the people-carrying capacity of California highways”, the state’s department of transportation says . In northern California, they are in operation only during rush-hour traffic. Driving solo in an HOV lane can land drivers a $490 ticket, and about 50,000 passengers are cited for the infraction yearly, according to the San Francisco Chronicle .

State law defines an “occupant” of a car as “any person who occupies a safety restraint device, ie, seatbelt”, the CHP says. Photos show the skeleton was wearing a seatbelt, but was not a person.

This isn’t the first time the skeleton ruse has been deployed. In 2020, a 62-year-old man was cited in Arizona for trying to use the HOV lane with a skeleton as his companion. Officers saw right through that, despite the skeleton’s hat. The year before that, a driver attempted a similar ploy with a mannequin in sunglasses.