Category: News and Views
Carpool Dummy Sells on eBay for $15,000
Mar 24, 8:29 AM (ET)
DENVER (AP) - A makeshift mannequin that failed to fool police monitoring
the high-occupancy vehicle lane on a highway has fetched $15,000 in an
auction
on eBay, with proceeds going to charity, the buyer announced.
A company called Video Professor bought the Styrofoam head, coat hanger, and
clothing stuffed with newspapers from carpool-lane scofflaw Greg Pringle,
53,
said Brian Olson, a spokesman for the company.
Olson said the computer tutoring company will take Tillie to various events
and later auction her off again for charity in June.
As part of his sentence handed down earlier this month, Pringle agreed to
donate any profits from a Web site - launched to free "Tillie" after she was
impounded
by police - and the auction to a driver safety awareness program.
"We've rescued Tillie from a life of crime and we hope to rehabilitate her
so she can be a contributing dummy to our society," Olson said Thursday, The
Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News reported.
Pringle also was fined $115 and ordered to hold a sign alongside the highway
for four hours reading: "HOV lane not for dummies." He was pulled over and
ticketed Jan. 26 for driving in the lane reserved for car pools,
motorcycles, buses, and hybrid vehicles.
Pringle has said it cost him $10 to create Tillie.