A California man has been fined $351 for using a kickboxing dummy as a fake passenger so he could drive in highway carpooling lanes.

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California Highway Patrolman Will Thompson stopped 28-year-old Kevin Morgan in Marinwood Sunday, after noticing the passenger had no legs, the Marin Independent Journal reported.

"I think he was pretty embarrassed because all the people driving by were laughing," the trooper said.

Thompson had hauled the torso out of the passenger seat and plunked it down on the freeway shoulder to as a warning to other commuters.

"I think about the only thing he said was, 'Well, that didn't help me very much today, did it?'" Thompson said. "I said, 'No, it didn't.'"

Fake carpool passengers aren't new on U.S. highways, the report said. In 2002, a woman driving with a mannequin wearing a wig, sweater and makeup, darted into a carpool lane near Seattle and caused a series of pileups involving six cars and two buses.