Skull & Crossroads
First a very brief explanation about HOV, which stands for High Occupancy Vehicle, and if you are driving one, you can use the HOV lane in many US states. The idea is to get more people to destinations rather than more vehicles. In other words, the HOV lane moves a lot quicker than the others, but you need two or more people in your vehicle to be able to use it.

Of course, if you try to use the lane without a passenger and the police or camera spots you, then you will end up with a hefty fine. So, quite a few people have tried different ways to avoid being caught. Tailors dummies, blow-up sex dolls, large dogs dressed as humans, all of which have been tried by those without friends to travel with, but want to use the HOV lane.

Well on December 20th, Washington State Police pulled over a vehicle that was doing 82 mph on the freeway. But as the trooper approached the vehicle he realised that the passenger was not moving too much, and looked rather thin.
The trooper looked into the vehicle to be confronted by a skeleton in a hooded sweatshirt. As it turned out, old bony was only made out of plastic, but a bit of a shock all the same.

The driver, who was not a skeleton, was fined 454 dollars for speeding, performing a dangerous lane change and an HOV violation.

 

Artwork Handed Back
It comes to something when the economic crisis even hits thieves, one might say they are beginning to feel the pinch.
Take the two robbers who stole a picture by the surrealist artist René Magritte some two years ago. The work has been reported as being worth around 3 million euros, but the thieves just couldn’t shift the thing!

The oil, which is called Olympia, depicts the artists wife, nude, with a seashell on her stomach and was stolen by gun-toting thieves from the artist’s former house, which doubles as a museum, in 2009.

Well, two years of trying to sell a very recognisable work in a market more depressed than a PSOE member after an election, the thieves contacted the insurance company handling the theft and arranged for its collection.

Thieves are thieves… but at least they returned the work to the museum. Most works that can’t be sold end up being destroyed.