Slashdot Mirror
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."
What I worry about it that leading to civil uses -- what if my wife's lawyer got records showing I was sneaking over the Golden Gate to visit my mistress (expensive booty call with the new tolls, BTW).
I wish there were some reasonable way to insure against a slippery slope. I would prefer to live in a country where it's easy to catch criminals without sliding into surveilling lawful citizens.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
what the ... my Coca-cola aluminum can mobile would become totally useless!!! Down with the EU!!!!!!
I'm sure glad I was never asked to explain how I made it nine miles in under eight minutes on a 55 MPH road.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
The way to pay for this fancy new traffic monitoring is clearly to send tickets to everyone that goes from point A to point B in less time than it should take per the posted speed limit. Considering that we already have automatic red light and speeding traffic tickets (no police intervention required!), this seems like the next step for the "coddle you to death" bureaucrats to take.
Lots of petrified grits
I think, basically, that's what most people want.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I think the idea of tags to track traffic if used for purely congestion purposes, and helping ems, etc finding the quickest way to some place, but not if able to be used for tracking individuals. Just make tags that everyone is required by law to have in their vehicles, but make them with no ID tags at all. Each transponder will basically be saying "yes there is a tag here" rather than "tag 13489023094 is here". It would allow better traffic flow dynamics with real-time data on how dense traffic is, while keeping anonymity.
Being able to be tracked, in any form, isn't a good thing for innocent people. Maybe (BIG maybe) for conviced child molestors, murderors, etc it'd be OK to have a unique ID, and police trackable, but for the innocent (remember innocent until proven guilty you big-brother types?), there should be NO means of finding them, even if they are a suspect in a crime. Police shouldn't have access to that kind of data on normal law-abiding people. And making the tags themselves "generic" will make it impossible for them to know.
Erioll
there can't be alot of power, heck sometimes they don't even register on the bridge...hence the phantom $4 CHARGES. Until the tracking devices are as ubiquitious as telephone poles or streetlights you've little to worry about.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Is just what about direct monitoring of traffic sounds cool? To me it sounds roughly as cool as a mandatory government email proxy so that all email can be directly monitored (For our own protection, of course). Russ
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
I just spent a few days visiting my cousin in San Francisco. Apparently if the electronics don't work in the electronic toll lane, a camera captures your license plate number and then they look you up and bill you later. I wonder if they would also use this to track people?
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.
If you have a wife that would put a Satellite tracker on you, she deserves to get cheated on. With multiple, ugly, crack-whores.
Trust me or don't marry me.
Bike.
In New York State, an "EZPass" must be in a special bag for it not to be read. Looks like an anti-static bag and it may be, I don't know.
I know people who have tried to get the thing to not be read (to get a reciept in order to expense tolls for work) and without the bag it is very hard to "hide."
The poor design of the system means it can screw you at times if you don't do what is the expected traffic pattern. I was told once at the toll booth getting on that since my EZPass had been read, I was unable to turn around and must now get on the truway going the wrong direction and proceed to another exit or be faced with a $30 fine for illegal U-TURN. Problem was an accident closed the on ramp for the direction I needed to go.
(I turned around at the next "NO U TURNS" turn around to go the direction I needed to once I had though out how the system worked and knew the turn would not be "detected" by the crappy EZPass system.) Also, it takes at least 24 hours for a credit on your pass to work at most ramps.
The system in NYS sucks technically. I am quite worried about it being used for speed enforcement purposes and such.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Hey everyone,
We have had this going on for a long time. They dont come right out and say they are using the toll tags for that purpose, but you know it's being done when you look at a site like this: Houston Traffic Map. It is pretty cool though. You can look at the map and see what roads are moving and which ones are not and during rush hours most of em arent.
M Prindle
Passing on the transponder and using coins won't sheild you from this type of thing. Most states put cameras at tollbooths to photograph the license plate of those who don't pay. When someone skips through a booth, a photo is taken of their license plate, OCR software reads the tag number and a ticket is generated without any human interaction. It would be trivial to write software that records the plate of each vehicle passing through, along with a timestamp.
Okay, so what they're doing is gathering traffic data, which they destroy after 24 hours, leaving only aggregate data with which they can analyze traffic flow and such. This isn't exactly an invasion of privacy.
To those people who think that by not having a little pass on, nobody can track you, I point you the toll highways where they just electronically read your license plate in order to charge you your toll, instead of bothering with an electronic tag, or the occasional murder case where they manage to find photos of the suspect paying a toll somewhere, despite the fact that the suspect wasn't using an electronic tracking tag.
Project leaders at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission say they're not interested in the movements of individual drivers, and have gone to great lengths to protect privacy, including encrypting the serial number of each transponder as its location is transmitted. They promise to keep this data separate from the identities of FasTrak users and other information needed to make automatic monthly deductions from their bank or credit card accounts.
"We're not tracking or trying to follow any individual car, just the overall traffic flow," TravInfo project manager Michael Berman said. "We're really trying to bend over backward to make sure we don't know."
But it feels like they are spying on me...
We had photo radar here in Ontario, Canada for a while. No one liked it. The majority of speeders wanted their day in court, instead of paying a fine. The courts became so backed up with photo radar cases that the government had to stop using photo radar.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
diddlydummmm...let's just wait a liiitlee while...while the connection buiiilds...*Living easy, living free*, what was the password again, ohhh, right *Asking nothing, leave me be*... now let's just get this image rendered... *Going down, party time*...all right, now it's beginning to show *My friends are gonna be there too* , ok, there's congestion, lemme see... right... right BEHIND me! *I'm on the highway to hell...*
but I just can't be. Of course they are just trying to desensitize us to this kind of invasion of privacy, but so what. It seems pretty inevitable that we are going to have to start living more like Europeans anyway. Except for the surrendering to Germany every few years part.
I'm the decider.
This could lead to a whole new sport involving low flying jets. Image how the data would look after factoring in a couple "cars" traveling upwards of 250 - 400mph.
forgery or serial number modification ? It would seem a potentialy profitable area, or just for shits and giggles would it be illegal to manufacture devices which respoond and broadcast bogus data to the system IF you never tried to cross a bridge for free ?? If you can't beat the system, flood it with crap...Imagine the perplexed look on the faces of the traffic people when the system reports gridlock numbers on I880 and traffic is flowing smoothly, or as smoothly as it ever does :) Imagine if there were 50 cars out there broadcasting the same number all over the state at the same time at different speeds.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
If they really want to track people mandate a chip in their hands. That way they know exactly who is in the car and when.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Another possibility for those too far from the office to not drive: Don't use the FRIGGIN toll transponders! Sure, it may take a minute longer to drive to work, but that's why there are people in the booths. If you're that worried about your high-speed drive to work, don't use 'em!
--
Emotional Attachment Failure In Progress. Do you care?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Driving is a privilege, not a right. In order to gain that privilege you must expect to give up some privacy in order to protect the public.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
In most states, an unmarked police car can follow you on the road and note your every movement without you even knowing about it or agreeing to it. There is no way to prevent it, and, even more scary, it is not illegal. There is not even an opt-out capability. They can use this information in court against you at any time they chose!!!
The only way to prevent this loss of privacy is to stay at home, lock the doors, don't use the phone or cable TV, or even pick up your mail. You must remain inside at all times and out of site.
Only then can you really enjoy your privacy. Of course, you can't enjoy anything else, but who cares. At least you can enjoy your privacy.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Some years back i was involved in the Safe T Cam system in australia, which is basically a road safety system for heavy vehicles. It was actually a little more sinister than tag tracking. It used some logic to identify the "size" of an oncoming vehicle, and for large vehicles it would use OCR to identify the number plate. This was logged along with a time stamp, across the state there were several such points. If the same number plate was identified at two distant points within a certain time, alarms were triggered. These were then used to investigate the driver in questions log books (truck drivers must take certain rest breaks by law, and over large interstate distances, getting from point A to B in a certain time meant they were either speeding, or not taking mandatory breaks or both). While the ticketing wasnt automatic, it is only a short step from it, and for that matter it could theoretically by turned on for all vehicles quite easily..
Big brother watches...
In Soviet Russia, cars drive you!
Quite simply, any jurisdiction that even has a fraction of a brain will not use an electronic toll system to issue tickets. If they do, people will stop using the electronic toll system. It's just that simple. The toll authority has just as much of an interest in having people use the electronic toll system as people do in using it to save time. More people using the electronic system means fewer people employed taking tolls and less traffic. They won't jeopardize that.
As far as tracking people using the transponders, I don't know that it's that bad a thing. Like they said, you can always avoid tracking by putting your transponder in a foil bag, and they're even going to provide them upon request (It's not a pain in the ass. I have two transponders, and they're only on the windshield when I am going through a tollbooth, because I have a convertible). That should show goodwill, at the very least. And California does have some of the worst traffic in the country. Any additional info on how it moves (or doesn't) is probably going to go a long way towards making it better.
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
What we need is an "opt-out" code an all of these electronics.
Privacy laws should require that goverment surveillance (without court order) can be opted out of. Each toll transponder, GPS-enabled cell-phone, OnStar system, etc, should have a switch, code, or other mechanism for opting-out of aggregate data collection.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
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
If you can take them down and not have them track you... how is this now an invasion of privacy? I mean you could just not have one (or do as another user suggested and ride a bike).
I mean it must be such an inconvenience to do a way with this convenience but c'mon!
A person can't blame invasion of privacy on such a blatant example of laziness.
What is music when you despise all sound?
When I worked for the NYC Transit Authority, I once saw a demonstration of a similar system they were demoing using the EZ-Pass. One of the features was that the system purposefully ignored the EZ-Pass owner's identity when culling the statistical data. It seemed a bit silly to me since your identity can still going to be discovered by simply looking in the billing database instead, but at least they had the right attitude.
FYI, MetroCards are a little more private since there's no way to match up a serial number with an individual unless you pay by credit card, have a picture ID MetroCard (e.g., Seniors, Disabled, student, etc.), or are found with the card in your possession.
....how exactly would this info be *really* useful? I mean - yes I know that it would be able to show that John D. Rapist drove over the Golden Gate bridge at precisely 11:12pm last night with Suzy Victim in his trunk blah blah....
but thats not very much information.
the thing that makes this even less of a worry (in this specific instance) is that very very few people actually travel through tolls daily (as compared with the population of the country) and those that do make up the 95% "repeat offenders" (people who travel across the bridge every single day)
I live in the south bay - I am surrounded by toll bridges - but I very very rarely cross them. If I do its on my way to tahoe where I pay the 2 bux to continue on after crossing the Benicia bridge.
Other than that I might make a trip every other month or so across the bay bridge... but for the most part my entire travel corridor is I-280....
so aside from Big Brother is tracking your every move - which is a Bad Thing (TM) - this doesnt warrant any concern on my part - at least until they start tracking my moves through embeded chips in my drivers license.
More people who appear to be tollway violators because they didn't pull their transponder out soon enough.
Transponder mod chips for random serial numbers.
People on cell phones pulling out transponders as they try to get through the booth.
People setting up their own silent tracking antennas and keeping all information.
Transponder mod chips with serial numbers belonging to people tracked with the previous method.
Beowolf transponder clusters to make it look like you're a traveling traffic jam.
No Zen is good zen
If you're paranoid, they'll give you a mylar storage bag for free. Otherwise, the serial numbers will be encrpyted and seperate from the data. Not only that, but "All record of serials numbers stored in electronic files will be destroyed daily, leaving only general averages and patterns for later study," Berman said.
So, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place. Fair enough.
Therefore, we should all wear tracking devices so the government knows exactly where we are at any given time, except when we are in a private place... after all, you have no expectation of privacy, right?
Every single time any government agency says this, they simply mean "Untill you get used to it, and ignore it's existence. We'll gladly start tracking you once we think we can get away with it"
Houston has its own traffic tracking system that operates in a similar fashion. When I first realized that they were using the toll-tags to calculate this, I became concerned about the privacy issues (especially given that this use is technically a violation of the license agreement). So I called a friend of mine at the Texas Transportation Institute and asked about it.
And lo and behold, they actually turn out to take the privacy aspect very seriously. When an EZ-Tag (TM) passes under a sensor, it gets assigned an id. When it passes under the next sensor, it calculates the speed, adds it to the database with this generated id (not the toll tag number). And then it assigns it a new ID for the trip to the next sensor. Thus, TTI is incapable of knowing, even under threat of subpoena, the identity of any car passing down the highway or the route of any single vehicle beyond any single highway segment. The entire system is designed to prevent it.
really huh? is it *that* much a problem to use cash?
with a toll transponder you have to slow down to like 5mph *anyway*, not like certain (fairly old) VW commercial showing somebody in a passat zooming by at 40.
cash is not going away anytime soon -- there are always people from out-of state who have no transponders, and then there are trucks with multi-axles etc.
i would see that as a much more permanent solution than "put it in the glove box" whatever. in the end -- which one gives you less trouble? taking the transponder out from the passenger side every time you pass a toll, and worry about privacy issues, or simply take out your wallet when you pass a toll?
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I don't know how the transponders are distro'd in California, but with New York's EZpass, (and I'm sure any other EZpass coverage areas) we receive the device in a metal-oxide "static-free" bag, of which we are informed, "If you do not wish to use your EZpass for a toll, place the device in the metal-oxide bag provided and place in glove box."
So the simple solution: Leave it on your window for the toll, remove it after leaving the booths, and replace it when you need to leave the highway...
You cell phone rings and you hear, feeling hungry? There is a Mcdonalds a mile from your current location on the left!
Well, you could pay your tolls using cash, take a soldering iron to the GPS chip in your cell-phone, rip out your OnStar system (or buy a car without one), and generally avoid tying yourself to mechanisms which might record your data and could possibly be exploited against you in the future.
Or did you mean that they should have to opt-in before data-collection could be initiated?
Let's say this system goes into effect, and it can track traffic in real time and provide that data to the people who are causing the traffic. Everyone on the road figures he's smarter than the drivers around him (I can confirm this mentality is the norm in Northern California, where this is being implemented). Drivers on US 101 simultaneously get a report from their cell phones that they're facing bumper-to-bumper traffic from Moffett Field to University Ave, and people respond by getting off the highway and flooding Middlefield Road, which runs parallel to 101. Only this causes Middlefield to become even more congested than 101 (which is still congested because Middlefield just can't handle that much traffic). So some people abandon Middlefield to go back to 101, causing more problems, while a steady stream of cars begins to work its way through the side streets around Middlefield. The end result is that no one really gets to their destination any faster (this actually increases travel time for many people as they hop between routes).
More importantly, the data becomes useless. If the drivers had not been supplied with the raw traffic information, they would have followed predictable traffic patterns that could be studied to determine where roads need to be widened or otherwise changed (any Bay Area commuters familiar with the northern end of 85 can already tell you where roads need to be changed). Since the otherwise sheep-like traffic now has thousands of minds of its own, the result is chaotic traffic in which patterns constantly change unpredictably as people try to adapt. Therefore patterns cannot be studied and the flow of traffic will not improve.
Ideally, the system should analyze the patterns without providing raw data to the drivers and suggest that drivers whose license numbers end in 4 or 8 take Middlefield, drivers whose license numbers end in 5, 6 or 7 should take 280 if possible, and everyone else should stay on 101. Intelligently-managed traffic is better than chaotic traffic.
With the red light cameras, the ticket is assessed against the vehicle (like a parking ticket) rather than against the driver's license (as with most speeding tickets) and the red light cameras get some proof that the ticketed vehicle was involved. With a calculated speeding ticket, however, there is no such proof. Again, the accused could simply say that neither they, nor their car, was on the road at that time, and there'd be no way to disprove it.
There is one other technical issue with trying to issue speeding tickets based on ETC data: most ETC systems don't collect enough data to make the calculation.
There are, basically, two types of toll facilities: boundry systems, where you get charged a toll each time you cross a boundry, and closed-loop systems, where you get charged based on the length of travel in the toll system. You can only calculate speed in a closed loop system, when both your entry and exit are recorded. Many toll systems are only boundry systems.
Even on a closed loop system, you can only calculate the average speed in the system. Under heavy traffic conditions, the average speed is likely never to exceed the posted speed limit! (this is the sad truth about speeding: it rarely benefits the speed but, occasionally, it is a great harm to an innocent bystander) You can pretty easily wipe out the extra time you gained by speeding while waiting to at the exit toll plaza.
Note, some agencies do issue fines for speeding thorugh the toll lanes, but that is a safety issue. None of the agencies that we work with issue actual speeding tickets based on speed in the toll lane. Also, many of the agencies maintain a constant police presence at the toll plazas, in order to go after violators. This was true even before there were ETC systems.
The ETC tags are pretty good for collecting information on what happens at the toll plazas. We can even get a fair amount of agregate information about the entire toll facility itself, based on plaza activity. But it is very difficult to extract information about individuals based on ETC data. The agencies seem to have a pretty good understanding of what the ETC data is good for and what legal limitations they are under.
One example to illustrate this point: Some of the original ETC installations took pictures of violators from in front of the vehicle, including a picture of the driver and passenger in the front seat. Now, however, we only take pictures of the front and rear bumpers, specifically avoiding either front or rear windshield.
The reason is a legal one. Early on in the history of ETC systems a law suit was brought against one of the local agencies because a driver had violated the toll lane and had his picture taken. The violation notice was mailed to his house, where it was opened by his wife. His wife was quite upset to find a picture of her husband and a strange woman driving in his car in the middle of the day!
The local agencies are now prevented, legally, from invading a driver's privacy by photographing the driver or passengers of a vehicle passing thorugh an ETC system. (We still get some interesting pictures, but only when the driver's have gone out of their way to make themselves visible to the lane cameras)
I live in Southern California (we're next), and have one of the FasTrack transponders. Due to my limited usage of the toll roads, I originally elected not to get a FasTrack and instead pay the 50 cent surcharge for using cash.
Having used cash for about a month, one day I got a letter in the mail fining me $25 for running a toll booth. Having done no such thing, I called the TCA and requested more information on the violation. They stated that I had run the "cash lane," where the booth actually is attended by an tollway employee who takes your cash. On the date and time in question, I had been on the tollway where the violation supposedly occurred.
Their story was that I simply drove right through the toll booth. They had a picture of the license plate of my truck, and correctly identified its make/model based on that picture. The attendant even had to manually push a button in order for the picture to be taken and the violation issued. The attendant was supposedly a senior tollway employee, and as such they stated that it was very likely his story was correct.
After spending between 2-3 hours with the tollway attendant, and (legitimately) indicating that if they did not undo this ticket we would be in court, they removed the violation and required me only to pay the $3 toll.
As a result of this incident, I decided to obtain a FasTrack transponder. I've used it about five times in the past four months (my tollway usage has dropped almost to zero since this incident). At this point it probably makes sense to give them back their transponder.
The encryption part is potentially very interesting technically, and I don't expect an average newspaper article to get the details correct down to crypto-geek level :-) Chaum's Digicash technology could provide the privacy necessary to do toll collection privately, but isn't useful for traffic flow (where you want to be able to correlate separate transactions.) You could hash the userIDs along with a daily random key, which would still be susceptible to dictionary attacks if the daily numbers are retained, but would otherwise be somewhat secure. You get much better privacy if you hash the userID down to a value that's shorter than the number of userIDs (limits dictionary search attacks), but that makes it hard to track cars if you overdo it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Actually, you opt-in when you decide to use the gadget. You can opt out by turning off the service/not using it.
I support PETA but I wear leather shoes and would get a leather interior car. Just because many members of PETA are vegetarian or vegan doesn't mean I have to be as well. Its possible to support the eff while disagreeing with some of the positions the eff might take. I happen to think annonyminity in public is a good thing, but privacy in public is unrealistic.
We avoided the issue by always "losing" the ticket between where we entered and the exit ramp. The "lost ticket" penalty was that you pay the maximum toll fee, which was fine by us, as that was the toll we would be paying even if we hadn't "lost" the ticket.
My theory is that the rumors were started to increase toll revenues :)
dutky from the Toll Collection Agency writes:
Faulty logic. Yes, I "wipe out the extra timeExcept, the guy who doesn't speed is going to have taken that much longer to arrive at the exit, and will have exactly the same wait as I did!
So if I drive 85 on the toll road and wait five minutes to exit my average speed for the trip drops below 55. But the guy who drove 55 for the same distance waits the same five minutes...
By the "speed kills" logic, we should just set the maximum speed on all public roads to 5 MPH so as to all but eliminate deaths from pedestrian-vehicle accidents.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
You have an opt-out feature on all of those items. Just don't use them. None of them are essential.
When it comes to private companies selling my personal information to make more money, so that other companies can direct-market at me and make more money, opting out makes sense. But when you're talking about them wanting to be able to find a phone that dialed 911, well... that's often my biggest fear; that I'll get to the phone in time to call, but not be able to tell them my location fast enough. Right now, they have no way of finding me unless I tell them. (If you call from a landline, the information automatically comes up, and there's no way to block it. You also can't block Caller ID information from showing up when you call a toll-free number, because if you're calling just to run up their bill, they can seek restitution.)
You're talking about the government (you vote for them, unless you're silly enough to complain about them and then stay home on election day like it's somebody else's problem), not private companies. They're a non-profit entity. You (and a few million of your friends) can fire them from their jobs. If you're afraid of government abuse, keep your eye out, and make sure your representatives know your concerns. Heck, sponsor an initiative referendum for a citizen's oversight group, if you really don't trust them with this info.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
nt
was this before or after 9/11? also, when you say in front of the Capitol, do you mean in DC?
From the dictionary:
privilege: A peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor; a right or immunity not enjoyed by others or by all; special enjoyment of a good, or exemption from an evil or burden; a prerogative; advantage; franchise.
"Driving is a privilege, not a right" is one of those statements that somehow became commonly accepted because thousands of ignorant people repeated it.
My state allows me to drive on its public road system, which I contribute a portion of my income to maintaining. I am in fact guaranteed the use of that system if I obey certain requirements that myself and other citizens have agreed upon through our government. Driving is in no way a privilege.
Yes, I can't go drive my car like I do the "Barracks OL" in the video game "Grand Theft Auto 3," and expect to be allowed to continue to use the public road system. But at the same time, the state does not have the right to place potentially unconstitutional burdens on my use of the road system which I pay for.
When I'm driving my car about town, I have a reasonable expectation of privacy that included that my movements are not being tracked, that the passenger compartment is not bugged, and so on.
I doubt bugging your car would fly, but I could certainly hire a private investigator to follow you without your knowledge. I could put recording devices in public places that you're known to frequent that would pick up your 3am chat. The guy a table over at McDonald's just might be a cop eavesdropping on your conversation (and recording it). Whatever expectation you have about your privacy in these circumstances, the courts will probably tell you that you're wrong and need to rethink your definition of "reasonable" before you go outside again.
In the future there might not always be those people working in the toll booths, and this sets a bad precedent.
Take the new 407 Highway in Toronto Ontario. It is completely automated. It uses transponders, and if you don't have a trasponder it snaps pictures of your license plates. There is no stopping anywhere to pay tolls, whether or not you have a transponder.
So while you may think its an option to just use the pay booths right now, wait a few years down the road until your state goes completely automated like Toronto, and then you won't have a choice at all. Don't let the precedents be set now.
Luckily, you can always move to Liberty City.
Just what did you do to have highway patrolmen often tell you otherwise???
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
For people doing 75-80, they won't bother, plus the time sync issues between stations (exits) could introduce enough error to make their measurements suspect at best.
But at over twice the speed limit you can bet someone's going to notice.
It removes all of the (practical) motivation to speed. You can't remove the other kind of motivation anyway, unless you make speeding commonplace and legal.
Consider this: the section of the NYS Thruway from Newburgh to Albany is just about 80 miles. At 65, it takes about 1 hour 15 minutes. But I usually stop at the final rest area to take a piss and get more coffee, so we're talking 1 hour 20 minutes total. At 80mph (normal speed on the Thruway), I could take a leisurely 15 minute break, rest, eat, piss, and still make the toll-to-toll time appear as if I was doing the legal 65mph. Doing 80mph makes for less time in the car, a longer break, and saves an additional 5 minutes. That's why we do it... I mean why other do it; of course I obey the speed limit =)
On a side note, the NY "EZPass" brochure says they won't release the info to the police (or the insurance companies hopefully) without a court order. But it still concerns me that some major company insurance company could buy the EZPass contract, along with all the records, and raise rates according to my toll-to-toll speeds.
And I usually take the transponder off the winshield when I'm not going through the toll... twice it's shaken loose and dropped square onto my drink holder spilling my coffee. Can't have that happening...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
The Supreme Court ruled on the Kyllo case last year and threw out the search warrant. The court defined a new "bright line" rule for using technology. The bright line rule says basically that the police can not monitor you with tools that are "not in general public use."
Incidently, where I live, the police were given a couple thermal imagers by the federal government a few months after that ruling.
More on topic is that automatic speed traps are used in several smaller towns and villages in Europe as a tax on uutsiders. They never move, so they never catch locals. The out of towners who get picked up help subside the town council.
It may be legal to track my car, but it's not moral. The devices were distributed under false pretenses and the real use is reprehensible. Where I go is my business, not yours and not the police's. People who carry such devices are slaves. Those who advocate their involuntary use by others are worse. They should work on either limiting the tags to their proper uses or disabling them. This is not the kind of convienence that I pay taxes for. What do you expect your government to do for you today?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.