Posted on 11/15/2016 8:10:49 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Across the country people have tried all sorts of ways to trick all-electronic tolling technology from capturing their license plates in order to avoid paying a toll, but officials in Massachusetts said the tricks aren't new and the technology is ready to catch the scofflaws.
Massachusetts will move to all-electronic tolling on Friday and has Raytheon's All Electronic Tolling System ready to read E-ZPass transponders as well as take pictures of the vehicles including the rear and front license plates if drivers go through without a transponder.
Raytheon's system is able to take color pictures of vehicles and track the make and model of the car if it goes through the tolls without a transponder.
The system, according to Raytheon, can even read bent or illegible license plates with some human help. Bills are sent to people if they don't have a transponder.
Grease, specialized license plate blockers and even sprays are sold online to try to help people cover their license plates and avoid tolls while going through these license plate scanners. Officials in Massachusetts are confident they can get money from people trying to avoid paying.
Port Authority police in New Jersey found people used grease to cover license plates and even found a truck driver had set up a system to flip up his front license plate while going through the E-ZPass lane.
"I think as our friends at Raytheon have said, although this is new to Massachusetts, this is not new," said Thomas Tinlin, the state's highway chief. "They've shown to us that they have a pretty good way of tracking those people down."
Raytheon's system allows for humans to review the image and the readable parts of the license plate, and along with the other information gained, can enter the vehicle into a system image database.
The vehicle can be recognized if it passes the system again.
"That's why we gather the evidence, you know. That's why we take the picture, that's why we take the video and that's why we have all those redundancies in place so that we can make sure the bill is being sent to the right person," Tinlin said. "So we've done what other states have done, we've put in checks and balances and a robust screening process. Should a plate not come up immediately, it goes into manual review and I think both what we see on the Tobin Bridge and what other states see, we do a pretty good job of getting the money that's owed to the people of the Commonwealth."
Chad Huff, the public information manger for Florida's Turnpike Enterprise, said unfortunately theft is part of any retail business and in the case of tolls - transportation is the product.
"We don't like to get into the details about methods people may use," Huff said, noting he didn't want to give people any ideas. "All-electronic tolling doesn't mean authorities aren't watching."
Florida, which uses the SunPass, had the first all-electronic toll road in 2011. There are about 12 million transponders in the state.
Officials keep track of areas where avoiding tolls is becoming a problem, no matter what method is being used, he said. Florida's turnpike has a loss prevention office and toll investigators, but also utilizes select enforcement from the Florida Highway Patrol.
"Molesting a plate or changing a plate is just one violation," Huff said. "Any uptick of any type of running the toll activity we can use special enforcement from FHP."
The cameras used at the Florida tolls are "very, very good," Huff notes. The cameras have high resolution and can pick up on other identifying marks on a vehicle other than the license plates.
"The people who break the law knowingly are taking advantage of those people who pay their tolls every day," he said.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) has budgeted a potential $15.9 million to $16.1 million a year in uncollected toll revenue. The number isn't just for those who try to trick the system. A lot of unpaid tolls come from out of state drivers without transponders, turnpike officials in other states have found. Those driver's receive paper bills as well, but collecting can be more difficult. The state is working on getting reciprocity with other states so that a hold can be placed on license renewal if there are unpaid tolls.
The number one issue in California when it came to toll evasion is cars without license plates. In fiscal 2013-2014, vehicles without plates evaded tolls in California on the Bay Area bridges and it resulted in a $9 million loss, according to a Metropolitan Transportation Commission report.
Paper plates from a car dealership do not have a license plate number making it hard to bill a driver because the cameras at the tolls needs to capture a number, said John Goodwin, senior public information officer at the MTC.
The paper plates will be phased out in 2019 after new law in California was signed this year. Temporary plates will have to be on cars when it is sold.
Owners were required to install new plates on newly purchased vehicles within 90 days of purchase. Massachusetts requires people to transfer license plates to a new vehicle within seven days.
Massachusetts has a law in place that requires vehicle license plate numbers to be legible and unobscured by a glass or plastic cover or other device. A violation is $35 for the first offense, $75 for second offense and $150 for third offense.
In the first six months of 2014, local and State Police issued 4,000 violations while enforcing the law.
"Legible plates allowing for prompt vehicle identification are a traffic safety priority and necessary for implementation of the new All-Electronic Tolling system now in place on the Tobin Bridge and set to expand on all Massachusetts tolled roads in the next two years," MassDOT said in 2014. "For those vehicles without an E-ZPass transponder, a camera captures an image of the vehicle license plate and a Pay-By-Plate invoice for the toll is mailed to the vehicle's registered owner."
MassLive.com reporter Gintautas Dumcius contributed to this report.
From grease to specialized license plate covers, drivers try to beat all-electronic tolling license plate capture technology
If you walk, they’ll tax your feet.
Haven’t we paid for these roads, like, ten times over?
The more troubling aspect is that many of these roads are owned and operated by foreign corporations. Research CINTRA.
> Haven’t we paid for these roads, like, ten times over?
It’s not about paying for the road. It’s all about getting money out of your wallet, so the state can decide what to spend it on.
I am not for breaking the law but these dolts saying this is a safety priority is a joke.
And these blackshirts scratch their heads and can't figure out why their tax base is fleeing the state like it's on fire.
Just figure out what Bill Belechik’s tag number is and print a bunch of cardboard copies.
It doesn’t matter. The beauty of a toll is that it’s a voluntary tax. If you don’t want to pay it, don’t drive on that road.
many of these roads are owned and operated by foreign corporations. Research CINTRA.
***************
Yep, Feds, state and local gov’ts are getting out of
building, owning and investing dollars in roadways.
I bet the politicians do not have to pay any tolls.
They also get a free car too.
The only time I ever beat them was when I drove my car from Seattle (Washington plates) to my new home in Kentucky. I went through tolls with impunity and when we got to KY we changed the plates.
However, I did use my KY plates on tolls in Chicago and figured I’d just pay them all online, except when I tried to, I didn’t have enough information. I never got a notice, but I did get a hit on my credit report for $650 for 9 tolls. I was able to pay half and get it removed.
We now just hit “avoid tolls” on our GPS and everything is fine. Oddly, it doesn’t cost us any more time.
I have no problem with them trying to collect legitimate toll fees. People will always try to cheat the system, this is just another example.
What irritates me is the way some of these toll roads are set up. My mother and I went to a suburb of Dallas last year to meet a cousin. I saw a sign saying the road I was approaching would take me to I 20, the one I needed, so I took that road. AFTER getting on this road, I started seeing toll road signs. NO advance warning at all, no sign saying I was getting on a toll road. No toll booth where we could simply give them our less than 2 bucks.
We were pretty pissed, if I had known it was a toll road I already had a route mapped out, no problem getting there without a toll road costing us extra. I don’t mind a toll road, if I have no choice, but to end up on one without knowing it then having no way to make my own decision on whether to take a toll road or not is infuriating. We finally paid the toll, but not without letting them know we were not happy about the deception.
As far as this article goes, if the toll road is marked as such and you use it, pay the damn toll. Same as people trying to find ways to use the high occupancy vehicle lanes when they don’t have the legal right to do so. I’ve seen news articles showing people with cardboard cutouts of people in the passenger seat. Not long ago one had a cardboard cutout of Trump...This is the same scenario, just trying to cheat the system. Fine the crap outta the bastards...
Modifying your plate mounting to flip them or otherwise make them unreadable is a felony.
A lot of those foreign owners are in financial distress because they made such terrible deals for those roads. U.S. companies were smart enough to stay away from them.
It’s all about keeping Union workers working and building bigger offices for the guys with the gold chains.
Need one of those rotating license plates with different numbers from one of the early Bond films (Thunderball? Goldfinger?)
In order to get greatest benefit, Have the one plate displayed when going through tollbooths tied to Fauxchohontas Lizzie Warren’s address, make sure she gets the bill. And do a LOT of freeway driving before the gig is discovered.
Lizzie would of course claim that a high falutin’ squaw like her only rides with her tribe sidesaddle on a white pony.
Oh, so the fuel taxes I paid, didn't pay for those lanes? Screw HOV lanes. Unless there's a special tag you pay for that goes to construct and maintain those lanes, they shouldn't be able to tell me, the one who paid for it with my fuel taxes, that I can't drive there.
Citation please. In most states an obscured plate is simply a citation, nothing more. Flipping may fall under something different, but obscured is not a felony, otherwise driving on muddy roads would make us all felons. Forged/stolen is probably the only felony for plates.
The west coast has no toll roads. When I went back east for the first time, and encountered tolls, I was amazed the people would put up with such a crappy system. It’s a system created to boost the number of unionized government employees. The funds should be collected via a gas tax.
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