Skip to main content

Skeleton key to Arizona HOV lane violation

The lengths to which drivers will go to speed up their journey has been brought into focus by one man’s – slightly grisly - ingenuity.
By Adam Hill January 28, 2020 Read time: 2 mins
Skeleton crew (picture from Arizona Department of Public Safety)

Arizona Department of Public Safety (ADPS) revealed that one of its officers has issued a ticket to a 62-year-old man who was illegally using a Phoenix high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane.

In itself this is not particularly unusual. HOV lanes are a fixture on routes which are prone to congestion and it is far from unknown for devious, lone commuters to position shop window dummies in their passenger seats to beat the system. But it is uncommon for someone to try the same thing with a skeleton as a co-driver.

The bare bones of the matter are these: the offence took place on Arizona State Route 101 near Apache Blvd in Phoenix. The skeleton, shrouded in Halloween cobwebs and topped with a battered camouflage hat, was propped up in a bid to circumvent the forces of law enforcement. 

ADPS saw straight through the ploy. Using the hashtags ‘NiceTry’ and ‘YoureNotHeMan’, the organisation tweeted: “Think you can use the HOV lane with Skeletor riding shotgun? You’re dead wrong!”

A less than amused ADPS spokesman told ITS International: “What we would add is that this behaviour is not only illegal, it is also a disservice to all other motorist that are attempting to do the right thing.”


Related Content

  • Reviving rural public transport
    February 4, 2015
    A recent seminar in Krakow, Poland, on proactive marketing for sustainable rural transport, delivered as part of the EC-funded project SmartMove, provided advice to local authorities and others on the use of individualised marketing to maximise patronage of rural transport systems on tight budgets. About 40 people attended the event, including several local politicians and public transport stakeholders in Poland. The SmartMove project is based on a successful pilot project carried out in 2009 in a rural
  • Drones make Soarizon watcher of the skies
    December 16, 2020
    Getting a close view of where traffic problems are occurring is one of the main selling points of the ITS vision industry. Soarizon is doing things differently, Benjamin Orcan tells Adam Hill
  • A lot of people 'drank the DSRC Kool-Aid'
    March 2, 2021
    US move towards C-V2X can help connected vehicle deployment, says Bryan Mulligan
  • Use of ITS technology grows more prevalent in safety applications
    January 30, 2012
    Transportation agencies and governments are using ITS technology to protect critical infrastructure from terrorist attack and other threats to economic security and public safety. Andrew Bardin Williams reports. It is no secret that we live in a potentially dangerous world. Terrorism as seen on 9/11 in the United States, subsequent attacks in London, Moscow and Madrid and other acts of violence across the developing world have made vigilance the watchword for ensuring security. Key infrastructure is now bei