Tortelicious: Officer Questions Sunglasses, Finds Missing Pants

February 9th, 2010. By LucyC

Welcome to Totally Tortelicious—a review of some of the more bizarre legal stories making news. Goodness knows there’s no shortage of them.

Shotgun Poser Gets Ticket to Ride? You know those High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes—the lanes on the freeway with a bold diamond symbol posted on them, that no one is allowed to use unless they are ‘carpooling’, i.e. carrying more than one person in the car? Well, a 61-year old New Yorker, who must have been pretty fed up with sitting in traffic by herself, was recently fined $135 for using a mannequin as her ‘plus one’.

Apparently, everything went according to plan until one rather savvy Sherriff’s deputy spotted the ‘passenger’ wearing sunglasses and using the visor on a very overcast day. Umm. When he stopped the vehicle, he found Dolly in the passenger seat, smartly dressed in a blazer, shirt and scarf, with long flowing tresses—all set for her day at the office.

The driver was given a summons and, in addition to a fine, she could be given two points on her license. So you have to wonder who the real dummy is here. (bad pun, I know). 

Installing Fraudband Service…Internet and wireless fees are a favorite rant for just about everyone these days. But I’m willing to bet most of us would be hard pressed to beat this quote. A couple in Cumbria, Wales, got an estimate from British Telecom—otherwise known as BT—for $70,427.98 for installing broadband service to their house. Now, I know some towns in Wales are remote—but that’s ridiculous. Ray and Fri Walker don’t exactly live off the beaten path.

Apparently, BT’s reason for the five figure installation fee is that “all their equipment is currently being used.”  Are you kidding?

“BT’s current network is full to capacity and so needs to add new components, in order to add new customers,” one media outlet reported.

“It’s a farce, and obviously we’re staggered. We don’t have (the money) and if we did we wouldn’t spend it on this,” Ray Reil said in an interview. I should hope not.

It sounds like BT quoted the couple for the price of the company upgrade instead of a domestic single family upgrade. And, if that’s the estimate for the upgrade—what’s the monthly service charge going to look like? 

Guess She Wears the Pants… Some poor guy in Tennessee has been rather severely penalized for a minor act of charity. Apparently, he gave $5 to a homeless man but didn’t have the nerve to tell his wife, who is reportedly the very definition of stingy. So, he told her he’d been robbed. And, to make the story more authentic (my guess is maybe this is not the first time this has happened) this fellow goes down to the local police office and reports the fictitious robbery to the police.

What do the police do? Charge him with filing a false report, throw him in jail and tell him he’s got to come up with $1000 bail! I don’t know, I’m thinking maybe he’s better off in jail. And he may just end up there on an extended stay if his wife really is that cheap.

Tags: British Telecom, HOV lane, Tortelicious

This was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Totally Tortelicious . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.