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Felony charges for $1.25


maddmaxx

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http://www.clickorlando.com/news/man-used-license-plate-cover-to-avoid-paying-tolls-troopers-say

A Florida man is charged with a felony for using a remote control curtain to cover his drivers license as he drove through toll stations.  It was a brilliant idea but when done while a police car is behind you not so smart.

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I just blow through the toll gates and rock, rock on

I found out that the turnpike commission doesn't actually make any effort to collect unpaid tolls, they just write it off

this guy went way farther than he really needed to. Hell, he should have just stole a car and ditched it after the job

I just don't get some people

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10 minutes ago, Nate said:

I just blow through the toll gates and rock, rock on

I found out that the turnpike commission doesn't actually make any effort to collect unpaid tolls, they just write it off

this guy went way farther than he really needed to. Hell, he should have just stole a car and ditched it after the job

I just don't get some people

Most of them don't have toll gates anymore.  You either have to have a transponder to get a discount or they automatically take a picture of your plate and once a month send you a bill.  I'd hate to live in area where you have to use toll roads regularly because some of those aren't cheap, $4 to just cross the new bridge in Louisville if I don't have a transponder.

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14 minutes ago, Nate said:

I just blow through the toll gates and rock, rock on

I found out that the turnpike commission doesn't actually make any effort to collect unpaid tolls, they just write it off

this guy went way farther than he really needed to. Hell, he should have just stole a car and ditched it after the job

I just don't get some people

Now that most of northern new england is speed pass without toll booths they simply take a pic of your plate and mail you the toll request........along with a fee to the company that mails it.  Failure to pay simply makes the fee higher and higher eventually you pay one way or another.  I come from what is presently a non speed pass state so I don't have a transponder.  It happens every time I go north.

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1 minute ago, Indy said:

Most of them don't have toll gates anymore.  You either have to have a transponder to get a discount or they automatically take a picture of your plate and once a month send you a bill.  I'd hate to live in area where you have to use toll roads regularly because some of those aren't cheap, $4 to just cross the new bridge in Louisville if I don't have a transponder.

The bridge going to JFK is $8 each way.  Cash grab.

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1 minute ago, Indy said:

Most of them don't have toll gates anymore.  You either have to have a transponder to get a discount or they automatically take a picture of your plate and once a month send you a bill.  I'd hate to live in area where you have to use toll roads regularly because some of those aren't cheap, $4 to just cross the new bridge in Louisville if I don't have a transponder.

yea, I said "gates" sort of nostalgically

I actually commute over the PA turnpike to get to work. I have one of those "EZ-Pass" transponders.

in PA we don't have front plates, only in the rear, so the camera things wouldn't work here. But if you just roll through the EZ pass lane like everybody else, there's nobody to stop you and they can't come and collect because Chevy made more than one of these trucks and all....

 

but the real kicker in PA is the Turnpike Commission is its own entity. They have their own budget and aren't part of PennDOT. The Turnpike commission is notoriously awash in cash. The toll booth guys make north of $80k a year, and they are the bottom rung of the payscale. It truly is "nice work if you can get it", but you better have a cousin working at the commission, or they'll never hire you.

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1 minute ago, Nate said:

yea, I said "gates" sort of nostalgically

I actually commute over the PA turnpike to get to work. I have one of those "EZ-Pass" transponders.

in PA we don't have front plates, only in the rear, so the camera things wouldn't work here. But if you just roll through the EZ pass lane like everybody else, there's nobody to stop you and they can't come and collect because Chevy made more than one of these trucks and all....

 

but the real kicker in PA is the Turnpike Commission is its own entity. They have their own budget and aren't part of PennDOT. The Turnpike commission is notoriously awash in cash. The toll booth guys make north of $80k a year, and they are the bottom rung of the payscale. It truly is "nice work if you can get it", but you better have a cousin working at the commission, or they'll never hire you.

Indiana only has rear license plates, the camera still works.

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6 minutes ago, Indy said:

Indiana only has rear license plates, the camera still works.

really? didn't know that

oh well, there goes that last bit of comfort in thinking that our Commonwealth's backward assed ways would protect me from intrusive technology :(

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36 minutes ago, Nate said:

I found out that the turnpike commission doesn't actually make any effort to collect unpaid tolls, they just write it off

Funny you should say this - in September I rented a U-Haul and without thinking I drove through the EZPass lanes (since I've had a transponder in my car for 20 years).  I exited without paying a toll. and ended up getting a bill for $60, including the max toll (assuming I came in from Ohio) plus a $25 fee.  Got another reminder, with another $15 tacked on.

I called yesterday and because I am an EZPass customer in good standing they offered a settlement - for $5, which barely covers the actual toll I should have paid in the first place (and they have no way of knowing what that was).  I was amazed at how easy that was.

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18 minutes ago, Indy said:

Indiana only has rear license plates, the camera still works.

As does Michigan and when I go through Chicago's toll booths they have no trouble knowing who I am.  There you have to go online and actually enter the toll booth numbers you need charges for and they will gladly tell you how much you owe.  If you fail to do that they don't send you a bill.  They wait for you to get stopped for something else and then enforce the automatic bench warrant.......

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5 minutes ago, TrentonStrong said:

Funny you should say this - in September I rented a U-Haul and without thinking I drove through the EZPass lanes (since I've had a transponder in my car for 20 years).  I exited without paying a toll. and ended up getting a bill for $60, including the max toll (assuming I came in from Ohio) plus a $25 fee.  Got another reminder, with another $15 tacked on.

I called yesterday and because I am an EZPass customer in good standing they offered a settlement - for $5, which barely covers the actual toll I should have paid in the first place (and they have no way of knowing what that was).  I was amazed at how easy that was.

they probably have the toll gates there around Philly equipped with modern heat seeking toll cameras

here in the midstate, I've never had that happen to me. I don't do it a lot, but sometimes the transponder falls and I don't notice until I've gone through the toll plaza. If you are an idiot and put it back, then when you leave you get charged the max toll because they don't know where you got on.

maybe they only enforce this stuff on out-of-staters?

there was just a story at the end of last year about all the millions of unclaimed tolls the commission basically just blew off as uncollectable

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5 minutes ago, Nate said:

maybe they only enforce this stuff on out-of-staters?

I had one other issue with EZP and the PTC - our credit card was compromised and cancelled, and I neglected to update our EZP with the new number, so it wouldn't refresh the account.  Two small tolls (Bensalem to 476 and back) totaling less than $10 ballooned into a statement for over $100 with penalties.  I had to write a couple letters for that one and it took a few months to resolve, but I ended up with a similarly low settlement amount.  Maybe they think us city folk are just going to find it easier to write a check and forget about it.

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4 minutes ago, TrentonStrong said:

I had one other issue with EZP and the PTC - our credit card was compromised and cancelled, and I neglected to update our EZP with the new number, so it wouldn't refresh the account.  Two small tolls (Bensalem to 476 and back) totaling less than $10 ballooned into a statement for over $100 with penalties.  I had to write a couple letters for that one and it took a few months to resolve, but I ended up with a similarly low settlement amount.  Maybe they think us city folk are just going to find it easier to write a check and forget about it.

the PTC always starts off with a big hefty fine. Hey, sometimes people just pay it.

like I said, they are so flush with cash, they don't need our piddling little fees. That doesn't stop them from slapping us with them...but they really don't care if they get any of them or not

you should see the construction project to widen the turnpike here between the HBurg East and West exists...they are doing it the most painstakingly and expensive way imaginable. Right now they are tearing up the perfectly good lanes they repaved just 2 years ago and digging them all the way up and making new road beds with drainage pipes being installed and everything. All that was there already and just a few years old :huh:

and the tolls are scheduled to go up each year until 2040, so what to they care?

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2 minutes ago, Nate said:

you should see the construction project to widen the turnpike here between the HBurg East and West exists...they are doing it the most painstakingly and expensive way imaginable. Right now they are tearing up the perfectly good lanes they repaved just 2 years ago and digging them all the way up and making new road beds with drainage pipes being installed and everything. All that was there already and just a few years old :huh:

and the tolls are scheduled to go up each year until 2040, so what to they care?

I got to see it quite a few times on all the drives to Frederick last fall, but I guess I wasn't through often enough to notice that new pavement was being ripped up.  Sometimes temporary pavement is the only way to go if traffic's going to be maintained during construction.

As a practicing civil engineer it does certainly appear that it's a good time to be an authority managing toll-funded expressways and/or bridges.

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5 minutes ago, TrentonStrong said:

I got to see it quite a few times on all the drives to Frederick last fall, but I guess I wasn't through often enough to notice that new pavement was being ripped up.  Sometimes temporary pavement is the only way to go if traffic's going to be maintained during construction.

As a practicing civil engineer it does certainly appear that it's a good time to be an authority managing toll-funded expressways and/or bridges.

yea, I can understand temporary paving, but this is what they did...you know about this sort of thing...tell me if this sounds legit or not

They started widening that stretch from 2 lanes to 3 lanes each way. For a year or more they are moving earth and preparing the road bed for the extra lanes on the outside of the existing lanes. They finish the new outside lanes and move traffic off the existing lanes and onto the new outside lanes. At this point, there are 4 lanes going each way, but they have concrete barriers up so we can only drive on the new outer lanes

then they dig up the existing lanes. and like I said, they had just resurfaced these lanes a couple years ago. It was smooth, good road

it just seems like they are doing it in the most expensive and labor intensive way they can

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1 minute ago, maddmaxx said:

If I had to I guess I could learn to live with the tolls but CT has been experimenting with speed cameras and if those ever come to pass the driving will get real dreary.

Have you ever driven the absolute legal speed limit everywhere?

I don't drive the speed limit anywhere

 

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2 hours ago, Indy said:

I'd hate to live in area where you have to use toll roads regularly 

Costs $1.50 a day for me to drive 20 miles of I-90 every day. (Less because I have an ez-pass).

What's really shitty is in MA, they charge you more if your ez-pass is from out of state, and if you have them bill you, they poke you even harder.

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