Dish-Houston

Here is a quick lesson in HOV (otherwise known as the High Occupancy Lane) etiquette. 

1) It's for vehicles with TWO (2) or more passengers.

That's it! It's quite simple and yet today a man who was involved in a 4 car pile up was alone in his vehicle with a half of a mannequin.

Metro Police officer Miguel Rodriguez was afraid the man slumped forward in the Toyota pickup had been injured in the four-vehicle wreck but no worries here because it wasa dummy dressed in business attire, along for the ride in the inbound HOV lane.

Rodriguez confiscated the legless mannequin after the incident on 290, near Beltway 8. The mannequin's owner, Michael Hooper of Houston, (why we are claiming him as one of our own, DISH will never know) was charged with excessive speed and unauthorized use of a high-occupancy vehicle lane. The HOV lane requires at least two people per car. Got that folks??? AT LEAST TWO PEOPLE! How hard is it to get that?

Hooper rear-ended a car when traffic slowed shortly around 7 Thursday morning according to METRO officials. Hooper, of course,  denied he was using the mannequin to sneak solo into the HOV lane.

“I was not using him for that purpose,” said Hooper, 54, an information technology consultant. “I was transporting him somewhere. He was in the front seat.”

Hooper declined to explain where he was taking the mannequin and said he couldn't say anything about what led to the crash itself because he needed to speak with his insurance company. (uh-hum)

Here is the fun part of the story DISHIES... Metro Police Capt. Michael Raney said officers confiscate, on average, one fake person a month from motorists in HOV lanes. If you are interested in keep track of the stats, the most common type is a baby doll strapped in a car seat. Among fake adults, males are more common than females.

“It should be a real person that is alive and breathing,” Raney said of the HOV passenger requirement. “Infants in the womb don't count.”

He mentioned it because he's heard it. NICE!