When a woman in Texas drove her car into the HOV lane, she thought she was obeying the law. She didn’t, however, have a passenger sitting next to her or any other passengers in the back of her vehicle. A police officer pulled her over and gave her a $215 fine for contravening HOV regulations, at which point Brandy Bottone pointed to her pregnant belly and informed him that she had indeed another person inside the vehicle.
When three traffic cops pulled her over for speeding in the HOV lane, Bottone from Plano, Texas, was 34 weeks pregnant. She was not only breaking the HOV rule, but she was also driving too fast because she was late to pick up her son from school. Because the woman drove at a high rate of speed and did not have another passenger in the vehicle despite utilizing the HOV lane, which is considered the carpool lane, police paid close attention to her.
Despite the fact that Bottone was unable to extricate herself from her speeding citation, there was no doubting she was going above the speed limit by a considerable amount. She did, however, have a strategy in place to handle her HOV violation. When the police officer asked her why she was driving in the HOV lane when there were only two people in the vehicle, pregnant mother replied that because Roe v Wade had been overturned by the Supreme Court, she should be allowed to transport her unborn child as an extra passenger.
The cops were astounded by this woman’s devious excuse to reach her destination faster by avoiding traffic. Despite the fact that Texas has banned abortions, the Supreme Court’s reversal has nothing to do with the HOV lane, and police were forced to inform her as much.
“I was driving to pick up my son. I knew I couldn’t be a minute late, so I took the HOV lane. As I exited the HOV, there was a checkpoint at the end of the exit. I slammed on my brakes, and I was pulled over by police. An officer peeked in and asked, ‘Is there anybody else in the car?” said Bottone to the Dallas Morning News.
The enraged mother was furious that the officer would not let her off the hook.
“I pointed to my stomach and said, ‘My baby girl is right here. She is a person.’”
She hadn’t expected him to be so sharp.
“He said, ‘Oh, no. It’s got to be two people outside of the body.’”
Bottone continued, “One officer kind of brushed me off when I mentioned this is a living child, according to everything that’s going on with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. ‘So I don’t know why you’re not seeing that,’ I said. He was like, ‘I don’t want to deal with this.’ Bottone explained. ‘He said, ‘Ma’am, it means two persons outside of the body.’ He waved me on to the next cop, who gave me a citation and said, ‘If you fight it, it will most likely get dropped.’”
According to the HOV rules, passengers must be at least two in order to use the designated lane.
Shouldn’t this pregnant lady have been fined $215 for delaying the busy police officers?
