Unborn Baby Takes Care of the Ticket
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When Sue Ann Yasger was stopped by a California Highway Patrol officer in October for driving in a Costa Mesa Freeway car-pool lane with no passenger in sight, she had a unique argument why she shouldn’t be fined.
The 29-year-old Fullerton woman said she indeed had a passenger: her 5-month-old fetus.
The officer didn’t agree with her. But Central Municipal Court Judge Randell L. Wilkinson did. The judge on Tuesday dismissed the $52 traffic ticket.
But the California Highway Patrol isn’t buying it.
“We will continue to issue citations to anyone driving alone in the car-pool lane,” said CHP spokesman Paul Caldwell in Santa Ana.
Even if the driver is pregnant? Yes, he said.
Yasger, whose baby is due in mid-March, said cheerfully that she isn’t worried about being stopped again in the car-pool lane.
“I’ll just wave my (newspaper) clippings about my case,” she said. “If that doesn’t work, then I’ll go back to court.”
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