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California Tracks Everyone Using Toll Transponders
obtuse writes "Direct monitoring of traffic sounds pretty cool, but some people don't want their toll transponders tracked. They aren't installing direct driver tracking for law enforcement now, but the collected data could be subpoenaed. Of course, anyone who didn't want to be tracked could just put it in the glovebox anyway, so they won't be catching clever felons or tracking real paranoiacs."
Here in north Texas, the NTTA is the toll authority. If you drive around town, you can find Amtech transponders mounted high up on telephone poles -- miles away from the tollroads! Not only does NTTA track you on the tollway, they are apparently keeping tabs on you when you're not on the tollway.
For the non-believers in Dallas: Look in the median on Valley View, just west of Marsh in Farmers Branch.
Growing up in the NE, we often traversed the Penn. State Turnpike. Back then, they gave you a punch card (Hollerith card for you purists) at the entrance booth, and you handed to the attendant when you exited. If your calculated speed was above a certain limit, you were referred to a Penn. state trooper waiting at the booth for a "consultation."
My father was a cop, so it was never a big deal, professional courtesy and all that...
In fact, France almost completely relies on correlating the times between toll stations to catch speeders. It's why when you're driving in France you see a lot of people with flashy cars at the side of the road eating lunch or talking for a bit just outside of the toll stations. =)
That reminds me of a really strange movie we saw back in first year calculus class. (Yeah, movies in math class. Weird in itself.)
Had to do with just such a situation, with the driver being referred to the cop for speeding. The trooper proceeds to explain Rolle's Theorem and Mean Value Theorem to the driver as proof that somewhere in between the two toll booths, he had to have been speeding.
I guess to the extent that I remember the name of Rolle's Theorem, the movie served its purpose. OTOH it always seemed kind of intuitively obvious to me.
-- Alastair