Your Commute

What's the best cure for road rage? Schadenfreude. Indulge yourself in a little Germanic feeling and check out the Chron's article on the cops who catch people who sneak into the carpool lane.

There's somewhere between three and five cops who patrol the diamond lanes on the Bay Bridge, who relate their techniques (lie in wait behind the Bay Bridge office building, spot a violator, get behind them, pull them over at Two Trees, which is their name for the Bay Bridge office parking lot, issue $371 ticket, graciously acknowledge the appreciative honking and thumbs-upping of law-abiding drivers passing by, drive back to parking lot, begin cycle again) and the excuses they've heard. They've seen a guy with a stuffed gorilla in the front seat, a doll in a baby seat, the top half of a mannequin in the back, a guy in a hearse claiming two corpses as the rest of his carpool, and the most common excuse, "you need three people to go in the carpool lane on 80?" (answer: yes, and your Jag does not count as a two-seater.)