Nice try...

[Dreamstalker]

I'd heard about people doing this, but never actually seen it until yesterday.

My mom and I were on the Southeast Expressway heading out of Boston yesterday morning. There is an HOV lane in the center.

All of a sudden, there is a backup and we see flashing lights in the HOV lane. Mom wonders if there is an accident; SmarTraveler didn't say anything about a backup...

We get to the lights, in the HOV lane is a cop car, a white pickup with the driver standing next to it, and...we see what looks like a man lying against the barriers.

Her: "Wait, what happened? I don't see an ambulance and the car looks OK."

As we pass, we see...the "person" lying on the road is actually a fairly realistic dummy dressed in a flannel shirt and overalls (Mom says it kinda looked like Red Green)

I don't think it was an inflatable, it looked articulated (hell, it fooled us until we passed and got a look at the head). The driver was standing there with an "I can't believe it didn't work" smirk on his face.

How did the cop catch him? Mom's theory is that he noticed the passenger was neither drinking coffee nor talking.

I give him points for effort, anyway.

ETA:Boston Herald link on the incident, apparently the dummy was handmade. It was on the local news and they had a few good shots of it, I can't seem to find that online though.

[Arm]

Nice.

Back in the day, my brother used to drive in the HOV lane with his Camaro. He'd rigged it to run on propane, and so it had the alternative fuel tags that meant he was allowed to use the HOV lanes.

He got pulled over a lot until the local cops learned what the tags meant.

[mattm04]

Nice try. I bet it worked for a while. Though the dress sees a little odd consider it was in a Cadillac Escalade and not a pickup.

[Dreamstalker]

Here's one good pic of the dummy.

[mikoyan29]

Looks kind of like George Lucas.