Car-pool lane not for dummies

Fed up with backups and endless brake lights, some drivers are zipping through the HOV lane with a secret: That person in their passenger seat isn't actually breathing.

Last week Trooper Tony Brock pulled over a Black Diamond man for cruising in the Highway 167 car-pool lane with a dolled-up mannequin as his fellow rider.

It wasn't the first time Brock had seen drivers resorting to creative schemes to bypass rush-hour gridlock.

"You name it, I've seen it," said Brock, who encounters drivers trying to circumvent the rules for the high-occupancy-vehicle lanes several times a week.

Car-pool cheaters tend to get more brazen — and imaginative — when the traffic gets worse and the weather heats up, said State Patrol spokesman Jeff Merrill.

A stuffed sweat shirt topped with a ball cap pulled low is not an uncommon tactic for drivers seeking an instant passenger. Some are meticulous about strapping the clothes into a seat belt, just in case.

Empty child car seats covered in blankets are standard ruses, although the particularly crafty sometimes place a plastic baby doll inside.

Brock commonly pulls over pregnant women driving in the HOV lanes, who argue that being with child should count as having a passenger.

It doesn't, Brock said. And neither do bodies in hearses ("You have to have a pulse"). Or dogs.

In King County, the Patrol gets more complaints about car-pool-lane violations than about any other violation. The State Patrol averages about 2,200 complaints in the county each month, and it only gets worse in the summer, said Merrill — in June there were 3,839 complaints.

The Patrol issued 1,252 tickets for HOV violators in June. At the start of July, the fine for being a solo driver in the diamond lane went up from $101 to $124 a pop.

A survey of local drivers conducted three years ago by the Washington State Transportation Center found the majority of both solo drivers and HOV users thought car-pool-lane cheaters were committing a serious traffic violation.

Merrill does credit the creativity of HOV-lane cheaters who go to extreme lengths. "These guys are really thinking," he said.

One notorious instance of a dummy in the car-pool lane was in March 2002, when a Kent woman used a life-size mannequin — topped with a wig and wearing makeup — to dart into the HOV lane on I-405. She cut off a bus and set off a chain of collisions involving eight vehicles.

She admitted to sometimes letting the dummy ride shotgun when traffic got clogged.

Merrill said cheaters add to slowing down the flow, and that "the more traffic that we have in that lane, the less effective that lane becomes." The intent of the HOV lane is to move more people in fewer vehicles, according to the patrol.

Heidi Herman of Phinney Ridge, who has been unsuccessful in finding a car-pool buddy, is fed up with sitting in traffic during her commute while HOV-lane cheaters go flying past the "suckers" in the regular lanes.

"It's really frustrating because I'm trying to play by the rules," she said.

Herman would like to report violators, but she can't jot down license-plate numbers fast enough.

It irks car-pooler Laura Rannow of Buckley to see cheaters crowding the HOV lane, but she hasn't reported anyone on the hotline.

Rannow thinks it will take stiffer fines to stop them.

Nabbing car-pool cheaters can be difficult for troopers, Merrill said. Troopers who do get a good look inside a speeding car often don't have enough time to verify if that passenger is made of flesh or plastic. Often cheating occurs during rush hour, a peak time for traffic accidents and other incidents that call troopers off cheater-lookout duty.

"Many times those people slide right on by," he said.

Drivers who spot violators and their dummies, can call the patrol's hotline: 206-764-HERO. The license-plate number is recorded, and the owner of the vehicle is contacted by mail. If a pattern develops, the patrol will stake out the spot where the violation is reported in an attempt to catch the cheater in the act, Merrill said.

Drivers looking to find a breathing body to car-pool with can link up with other commuters at www.RideshareOnline.com, a free service managed by King County Metro with partners throughout the state.

Christina Siderius: csiderius@seattletimes.com