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Feb 23, 2007 5:34 pm US/Eastern

Highway Cop Pulls Over Driver With Dummy
(CBS) HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. When Suffolk County highway patrol officer Tom Daley pulled over a Dodge Intrepid on the L.I.E., he found 32-year-old Tim Tietjen driving with a dummy, literally.

"It just appeared to be fake," Daley said. He was working traffic duty in Hauppauge when he noticed something strange about the passenger in the car.

That passenger turned out to be a full-sized CPR practice mannequin, dressed up with black hair, a moustache and a brown jacket.

Daley explains, "the chin was tilted up towards the ceiling, and the head was leaning back against the glass. It's cold outside. It's not something you'd do, lean your head against the glass in the cold."

Tietjen told the officer that he's been using the dummy as his driving pal since October to get to work faster.

Other drivers who have to wait in traffic, obviously are not laughing. "Some people will just do what they have to do to try to get through traffic as quickly as possible," one driver said.

Another doesn't think getting caught will stop him. "He'll probably get caught a second and third time, and what's the court going to do?"

That ruse cost Tietjen a $90 ticket, he had to hide the dummy the rest of the way to work, and he was not allowed to drive in the HOV, or high occupancy vehicle, lane.


By Alison Kosik

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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