A driver who put a homemade mannequin in the passenger seat in order to use the high-occupancy vehicle lane was sentenced today to keeping other motorists from making the same mistake.
Greg Allen Pringle, 54, will spend four, one-hour sessions standing alongside busy highways in Westminster, holding a sign.
It will read, “HOV lane not for dummies.”
Pringle is scheduled to start his sentence on Monday, and plans to have “Tillie,” his dummy, alongside him.
Pringle was cited in January, after a Westminster police officer thought the figure next to him in the HOV lane looked strange.
Pringle admitted he’d spent $10 making her with a polystyrene head in a hooded sweatshirt, a coathanger, foam, and other clothing stuffed with newspapers.
“I’m sure you thought it was a good idea for a time, and for a time, it was,” said Westminster Municipal Court Judge John Stipech at today’s sentencing.
“But I don’t want anybody else doing this, there will be consequences.”
As part of his guilty plea, Pringle paid a $100 fine. He also agreed not to profit from the sale of t-shirts or Tillie herself, whom he’d discussed selling on eBay.
He faces six months of unsupervised probation, until arrangements can be made to turn over profits, if any, to a charitable organization.
HOV lanes are for buses, motorcycles and automobiles with two or more passengers.
