Carpool lane cheater fail: 'Nice try -- but jackets don't count,' CHP says [View all]

When it comes to cheating the carpool lane in California, drivers can be creative.

There was the safety dummy that was misappropriated by impatient commuters. The mannequin wearing a baseball cap in Glendora and one with a drawn-on mustache in the Bay Area.

So by those standards, what the California Highway Patrol discovered when they pulled over a driver in the carpool lane in West Covina recently would be half-hearted.

According to a social media post by the CHP’s Baldwin Park office on Thursday, officers pulled over a driver in the high-occupancy vehicle lane of the 10 Freeway and found a jacket wrapped around the passenger seat headrest.

“Nice try — but jackets don’t count toward Carpool Lane requirements,” the CHP said in its post.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-03-17/carpool-lane-cheater-fail-nice-try-but-jackets-dont-count-chp-says