E-ZPass Sucks

moi | ML/NJ

[ml/nj]

E-ZPass Sucks!

This is a tale of bad faith, or possibly fraud, on the part of the government which collects highway tolls here in the northeast. But for those outside the northeast, I should probably explain first what E-ZPass is. And before I do that I should also explain that we are routinely stopped while driving on our highways here by highwaymen demanding tribute. The highwaymen here call the tribute "tolls," but a rose by any other name ... you know. If I want to drive from my home in New Jersey to Belmont Park on Long Island, about an hour away, I must pay $11 to $13 tribute during the course of my round trip.

It's not just the money that is stolen from me. They steal my time too. It is not uncommon to have to wait a half hour to pay a fifty cent toll to leave the New Jersey Turnpike. Even a person who makes minimum wage loses $3 every time this happens, but to the people who whine about the minimum wagers that time is worthless.

Under the guise of making things better, the highwaymen have come up with a new system they call E-ZPass. Drivers request and receive transponders linked to their credit cards, and optionally to their license plates too. Cars equiped with these transponders can drive through special lanes which can detect the transponders without stopping. (Usually there is a speed limit of five to 15 mph to drive through.) Of course "special lanes" don't just materialize by themselves, especially on roadways leading to bridges and tunnels where real-estate is scarce. "Special lanes" are created from lanes where cash had formerly been accepted. It is so bad that on one recent trip through the Queens Midtown Tunnel into Manhattan on a Saturday evening, it appeared to me that there was only one lane accepting cash.

Fortunately (?) for me, I had already acquired an E-ZPass transponder so I did not have to find out how long the poor people on that line had to wait to use the tunnel and, in fact, the growing waits to pay with cash is what drove me to get my transponder.

I had resisted E-ZPass for as long as I could. I don't like the idea of an electronic record being made of my comings and goings. I'm not doing anything I shouldn't be doing. I just don't like it. I think most Freepers will understand. I also believe the entire system to be illegal. One of the legal principles of our monetary system is a concept known as legal tender. Legal tender is that which must be accepted by law for goods, services, or debts. In the United States, one must accept Federal Reserve Notes, just as if they were the equivalent gold or silver coin they pretend to be. Refusal to accept legal tender voids the debt. Paper money is so ingrained in our psyches that one has to reach for a history book to read of times where merchants would accept only gold or silver, and they would refuse to accept paper claimed to be equivalent. When the government would force the merchants to accept the paper, it would hardly have tolerated a scheme where the merchant said he would accept the legal tender if the purchaser would just cool his heels for half an hour while some low level clerk figured out how to account for the payment, but gold and silver was accepted immediately. The E-ZPass scheme is no different.

Now, on to the bad faith ...

Back in October, shortly after I received my E-ZPass transponder, I drove down to Virginia from New Jersey. The tolls begin as soon as one gets on the Garden State Parkway and they don't stop until he gets through one of the Baltimore tunnels. All of the highwaymen, about ten in each direction, now accept E-ZPass. One of the places that accepts E-ZPass is the Delaware Memorial Bridge. I don't cross it very often. I don't recall what the toll is. I don't even recall if it is collected in both directions.

Last week I received a "Notice of Toll Violation" on a piece of paper bearing logos of both "E-ZPass" and the "Delaware River and Bay Authority." They tell me, "Your licence plate was recorded by the system for violation(s) listed below. Our records indicate that your vehicle used the 'E-ZPass Only' land without a valid E-ZPass account or failed to pay the required toll in a staffed lane. In addition to the toll, a $25 administrative fee has been imposed for each violation listed below."

Now I guess their equipment failed to register my transponder on my return trip. It is completley within their ability to have matched my license plate to my E-ZPass account and have sent me a note that they were charging my account an extra $3 because they detected this mistake on the part of their equipment.

Instead they pretend that they tracked me down through the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles database which matches my license plate, my address and me. Of couse they have all of this information in their own, presumably smaller database which is probably where they got the information from anyway. They even have a record of my having passed through the toll barriers just before and after the one in question, duly recorded by their equipment and entered into their database. I guess they just forgot to look. In their notice to me they never consider the possibility that I might have one of their transponders even though I would guess that the ratio of "violators" who have an E-ZPass transponder and weren't detected to those who are actually trying to beat the toll is quite high. But some government fool thinks this is a fun new way to exact tribute from the little people.

If there's some lawyer here on Free Republic who wants to take these people on with the intent of dismantling the whole system, I might be willing to make myself a test case.

ML/NJ

[Pete53]

More reasons that I am glad I live in Texas.

[Neets]

Interesting...the toll on the DWMB is $3.00.

Are you fighting this??

[Eala]

So typical. SOmebody forgot to "close the loop" by providing some indication to the driver that the transponder had been detected. Typical government efficiency. :-(

[The Real Deal]

Good luck......

[Cagey]

So far I've received four notices of violation complete with a photo of my car going through the toll booths on the GSP. I have filled out the form and returned the required information and each time they have been "kind" enough to rescind the violation. Each time it's cost me the postage and time to clear their mistakes up becuase they have a faulty system.

Yes, E-ZPass does suck. If you get a response here from an attorney, keep me posted.

[Eala]

Consider shortening this (250 words or less) and sending letters to the editors of as many papers as you can. Summary: E-Z Pass is a risk to anyone who uses it.
It does not tell you if it detected the transponder.
If it fails to detect you (the transponder failed, or any other reason), you get socked automatically with big penalties that can take hiring a lawyer to resolve.

(But if you hire an attorney, best confer with him first.)

[LurkedLongEnough]

At least we don't live in France. The EZ Pass monthly statements can also serve as a handy record of when and where your spouse has traveled throughout the day.... :-)
I'd pay anything not to have to wait in that "cash only" line anyway and I'm not paranoid about being singled out for surveillance as one of millions who use EZ Pass.

[lowbridge]

bump

[MindBender26]

Once I cried when I had no shoes, until I met a man with no feet.

If this is all you have to bitch about, stop bitching and be glad you have what you have.

PS: Going to the racetrack at Belmont Park seems to remove any sympathy vote......

[ROCKLOBSTER]

But some government fool thinks this is a fun new way to exact tribute from the little people

What really p!$$e$ me off is that it killed my campaign for Maine (highest tax burden state in the US) to "Tax the Tourists"! "Yes Sir, that'll be $10 cash to enter/leave the state."

[ml/nj]

So far I've received four notices of violation complete with a photo of my car going through the toll booths on the GSP. I have filled out the form and returned the required information

I'm curious. How many times would you say you have sucessfully gone through GSP barriers with E-ZPass? I'm interested in their failure rate. (I don't drive on the toll roads that often to have a sense of this myself.)

I am aware of others who seldom use the Parkway but have received notices similar to the ones you have received. At least the GSP seems to consider the possibility that you may not be a "violator," but they don't bother to match your license plate (or name and address, if you didn't specify a license plate) with the information in their own database either. As far as I am concerned that's bad faith too.

ML/NJ

[NetValue]

Yesterday I asked the toll collector whether she had a gun. She said, "No. Why?"

I replied, "Robbers usually use a gun."

Shame on Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey for these tolls!

[AUsome Joy]

I can't help with the EZ pass situation, but when we go to Virginia we try to avoid I-95. You can't get around the Delaware Bridge, but we save in tolls and time by going I-295 to the bridge and then cutting through Delaware (I think it is 13, with exit soon past the bridge) catching 50 and going over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Then go over to Washington and around the beltway. I don't have a map in front of me, so check it out. You pay the Delaware Memorial Bridge getting out of NJ but not the other way.

I don't know where in VA you go, or where exactly you live, but when we go to Richmond, we also sometimes take I-78 to I-81 and cut over on 17 at Winchester back to I-95. It cuts out all tolls except for the one across the Delaware River at Easton. That toll is 50 cents one way for now. They are going to raise it to $1.00 and do away with tokens. That is a pleasant ride compared to going through all the major cities.

Why is it that on one way tolls they are always out of NJ? It costs us to leave, but is free to come in!!

[pray4liberty]

Yes, E-ZPass does suck. If you get a response here from an attorney, keep me posted.

If you think this is bad, just wait until a National ID is imposed on all of us.

[motzman]

Thank you for posting this. Back in 1995, I lived in Nanuet, NY, and picked up EZPass when in first came out. What a mistake. After multiple screw-ups and $25 dollar "administrative fines", I went to one of the field offices in Spring Valley, NY, to complian about this nonsense. The government "worker" dididn't care at all that there was something wrong with my account that kept registering that I had no balance even though the credit card had a $10K limit, and plenty of room on it.

After 5 minutes, the slob behind the window kept saying "sir, you'ds best be payin da fine". Being that I'm a hotheaded ex-boxer, I did the most logical thing I could think of; I punched the wire reinforced safety window that the government slob was behind. Hard enough that it "spiderwebbed" the glass. Then I turned, went home and waited for the cops to arrest me. A week went by, an nothing happened. Oh, well.

Now that I'm back in Jersey, the "pressure's on" to get EZPass again. No way, no how, no sir. I've already read of millions of dollars in overcharges to the dupes that use EZPass. Besides, why should I expedite the process of being "robbed" by the government? There's no reason in this day and age to even have tolls, except to fund the workers and administration that collects tolls in the first palce. And it still amazes me that many of the people who have to re-arrange their weekend arrival and departures at the Jersey Shore due the the traffic-creating tolls, did NOT vote for Schundler, who would have ripped the abominations down. It just goes to show how easily conditioned humans can be. "The roads will fall apart if we don't have tolls" was the popular sentiment expressed by the idiotic over the issue. Oh well, we have to suffer because our neighbors are stupid.

I've also read on more than one occasion that EZPass was used to determined "whereabouts" in criminal cases, and I know of one divorce case in which a husband was proven to be cheating on his wife, because the husband's EZPass records were pulled and showed he was making "extracurricular" trips.

As long as I can help it, I will not get EZPass. I'd rather sit in traffic.

[July 4th]

At least we don't live in France.

Got that right. The tolls there are even more outrageous, but their intention is to force you onto the train. I think the tolls from Paris to Nice add up to about 50 bucks (plus you're paying 4 dollars a gallon for gas.) Once you add up the costs, it makes more sense to take the train unless you really need your car.

That said, we don't have tolls here in Wisconsin, but I have an "I-Pass" for the tolls in Illinois, and it works without a hitch. I've never had it miss a payment, and when I signed up, they asked me for all of the license plates I'd be using it with so that if I had it in another car, and it missed a payment, I wouldn't get charged.

The time saved is worth the negatives that come along with it. Doesn't mean I like tolls though...granted, I've never been through one that's more than a dollar...

[AlaskaErik]

Shame on Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey for these tolls!

No...shame on the people who live there and allow the politicians to do this.

[ml/nj]

PS: Going to the racetrack at Belmont Park seems to remove any sympathy vote

What's this supposed to mean?

Is your life so shallow that you think that all who attend the races are degenerates of some sort? I was there for the Breeders' Cup races, which were held in New York for the first time since 1995. These are now broadcast around the world, and people travel here from all over the world to attend. I met and spoke with several from a huge group of Englishmen who made a 48 hour trip to the USA for no other purpose than to watch these races in person. If they merely wanted to, oooh, gamble they could have visited any turf accountant on their own shore and watched on their own TV's. They recognize some beauty in life which you deny. Too bad for you. Go get a copy of Jay Privman's beautiful Breeders' Cup book and open your eyes.

ML/NJ