Stop, Diego, Stop: Cartoon doll gets man carpool path ticket

To be clear, State Patrol troopers say, kids do count for the carpool lane tally. Just not fake one.
On Thursday, the State Patrol detailed a stop in which a man late for work put his daughter's doll in the front passenger seat and tried to glide by in the carpool lane.

The doll was Diego, cousin of Dora the Explorer.

Diego got his own show, a spinoff of the Nickelodeon pre-school-age series, in 2005: "Go Diego, Go."

Luckily for him, fake kids don't get tickets from troopers.

The incident happened Nov. 29 on the northbound state Route 167 ramp to northbound Interstate 405. The driver was one of 21 people stopped for carpool lane violations that dawn.

"As cars moved past in the HOV lane the trooper observed a vehicle whose passenger had enormous unblinking eyes," Trooper Julie Startup said in a statement. "Realizing it was a doll in the front seat the vehicle was stopped."

But at least the driver was careful with his daughter's doll. Diego was wearing his seatbelt.