New York taxi driver allegedly avoided paying more than $28K in tolls by tailgating other drivers

Yahoo Odd News ^ | April 18, 2014 4:29 PM | Will Lerner

[Olog-hai]

In New York, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced yesterday that a taxi driver, 69-year-old Rodolfo Sanchez, has been charged with stealing more than $28,000 from the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) by, “crossing the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Bridge and entering the Midtown Tunnel without making a toll payment on more than four thousand separate occasions by ‘piggybacking’ on cars directly in front of his cab between 2012 and 2014.”

District Attorney Brown says that Mr. Sanchez would tailgate the a vehicle in front of his cab, “thus allowing both vehicles to pass through the toll lane before the barrier came back down.” …

[Olog-hai]

Doing it legally would be called “avoiding”. This is “evading”.

[crazycatlady]

This is Puget-sound specific, but kind of related. Could somebody explain to me how the 520 toll works?
I seldom drive anymore but have a license. Over the weekend someone I was housesitting for let me use his Ford Explorer while he was gone. I asked about Good2ToGo, because I had an errand on the Eastside.He said he had a “sticker.” I didnt really expect there to be a guy in a booth but thought there must be some kind of a scanner, something that would beep or flash, but nothing. How does this work?

[wonkowasright]

IF they didn’t detect him doing it how did they detect him doing it 4000 times ?

[Uncle Chip]

and he made 4000 trips before they caught him???

[Olog-hai]

That’s the MTA’s allegation.

[IYAS9YAS]

I didnt really expect there to be a guy in a booth but thought there must be some kind of a scanner, something that would beep or flash, but nothing. How does this work?

Went to the Good2go site. It's basically a bar-coded sticker attached to the windshield and is read by a scanner (think of the car as a big grocery item). The scanner reads the bar code and bills the appropriate account.

[SgtHooper]

Happened to me until I got wise, slowed way down before the Dallas Tollway booths, then accelerated through leaving the parasite behind. But what did it matter. Back then the camera housing’s were empty. I traveled it for years and took mental notice of the infractors. Guess what gender and ethnic persuasion was the worst.

[DoughtyOne]

So I guess congratulations are in order...

[nascarnation]

Apparently he had a stolen smartpass transmitter that was still pinging, although the account balance was zero.

After seeing 4000+ pings from it, they matched up pings with video records.

[Intolerant in NJ]

New York taxi driver allegedly avoided paying more than $28K in tolls by tailgating other drivers..is that like one plane avoiding detection on radar by flying across India in the "shadow" of another?....

[crazycatlady]

Thanks.