We think having dummies for friends is, on a scale of 1 to 10, a solid 11 on the creep meter. Last Friday, traffic cops stopped Timothy Tietjen, 32, of Middle Island for driving the L.I.E. with his unhealthily-tanned CPR dummy buddy. Tietjen had been doing this for six months so that he could use the HOV lane (reserved for drivers with two or more passengers), shaving hours from his weekly commute. Why the cops took so long to stop the guy and slap him with a $90 fine gives makes us seriously rethink our slavish devotion to traffic regs; why a photographer was there to record the event makes us rethink the entire known world.
-- Olena Adames