Don't Do This: Motorist Cited for 'Driving Miss Dummy'

An Eden Prairie woman was cited Thursday morning for driving in the MnPASS lanes on Interstate 35W with a counterfeit carpooler in her backseat—a bald, beige dummy dressed in a sweatshirt and neon orange sunglasses.

Ideally, the MnPASS lane is available only to those who pay an electronic toll or those who carpool with living, breathing human beings. The Minnesota State Patrol promptly posted the encounter on Facebook and issued two citations to Crystal Allen, 29, according to a report from the Pioneer Press: One for driving with a suspended license and another for failing to obey a sign.

For her part, Allen allegedly told troopers that her friends put her up to it on a dare.

Such antics are hardly new. According to a Star Tribune report about widespread cheating in toll lanes, at least two other people have been caught chauffering mannequins in the carpool-only lanes over the years.