{"id":234191,"date":"2026-03-24T14:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/234191\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T14:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:52:08","slug":"driver-caught-with-fake-passenger-in-california-carpool-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/234191\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver caught with fake passenger in California carpool lane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">March 24 (UPI) &#8212; A California driver was pulled over in Los Angeles county when they were seen driving in a carpool lane with an empty jacket as their sole passenger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The California Highway Patrol&#8217;s Baldwin Park station <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DVzLtO7ksXk\/?img_index=3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:said on social media;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;said on social media&quot;}\" class=\"link \">said on social media<\/a> that an officer on Interstate 10 in the West Covina area spotted a vehicle in the carpool lane with a suspiciously insubstantial passenger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;That &#8216;passenger&#8217; turned out to be a jacket carefully wrapped around the front seat with the seat belt fastened across it to resemble a person,&#8221; the post said. &#8220;Nice try &#8212; but jackets don&#8217;t count toward carpool lane requirements.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The CHP stressed that carpool lanes are reserved for vehicles that meet occupancy requirements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Fictitious friends and mannequin copilots won&#8217;t cut it,&#8221; officials wrote.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 24 (UPI) &#8212; A California driver was pulled over in Los Angeles county when they were seen&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,859,8,43861,106065],"class_list":["post-234191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-highway-patrol","tag-california-news","tag-carpool-lane","tag-sole-passenger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}