Commuting in Los Angeles traffic is so universally despised that a literal cottage industry once existed for hiring fake passengers to sit in your car so you could illegally use the carpool lane.

A closer look

Commuting in Los Angeles traffic is so universally despised that a literal cottage industry once existed for hiring fake passengers to sit in your car so you could illegally use the carpool lane. Wealthy drivers who absolutely refused to sit in bumper-to-bumper misery for three hours a day would pay strangers or buy highly realistic mannequins just to trick highway patrol officers into thinking they were carpooling. It says a lot about the crushing despair of American infrastructure that committing outright vehicular fraud and kidnapping a plastic dummy is considered a totally valid lifestyle choice if it saves you twenty minutes on the interstate. Truly, nothing drives human innovation quite like the sheer desire to avoid being alone in a gridlocked Prius!