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Police and Lawyers Love E-ZPass
John_Schmidt writes "The AP is reporting that police are using EZ-Pass records to solve crimes. Lawyers are also getting the records to use in divorce cases. The article also mentions that the NYS Thruway has sensors to read the cards along the highway (not just at toll booths) but says the data is scrambled and not stored."
How soon before:
You passed between milepost 1 and 15 in under 6 minutes, here's your speeding ticket.
Let's just get those RFID tags injected into our necks and get this over with. It is inevitable.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Do you sign a contract that states your usage of the EZ-Pass will not be tracked/used/etc...? Probably not, so if you allow yourself to be tracked and are doing illegal/illicit activities, it boils down to you aren't smart enough to be a good criminal...
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
Yeah, but for how long?
Send me your EZ-pass and $5, I'll put in a small push-button switch. Only activate it when you're not out doing illegal things :-)
This could work both ways. Give your EZ pass to your buddy(or clone it and attach it someone's car) and send them on their way.
STOP ROCK VIDEO
ALERT ALERT!!!! This is even worse than having to have a LICENSE PLATE! I don't want anyone else, (LET ALONE POLICE!) knowing who I am.
Convenience? Privacy?
Convenience? Privacy?
Decisions, decisions.
it is happening in California.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I will shortly be selling a kit that allows you to clone an EZ-pass card through my regular channels (read: guys in the states who advertise in the back of magazines sell COD) for selling cable descramblers. My hand held tag reader, concealable as a road side rock with a battery that lasts 3 days, is priced out the range of causual snoopers -- but some reporters have already used to collect the tag ids of a number of celebraties and politicians and start monitoring them.
My sentiments exactly. If there's no need for anyone to know anything about me, then they shouldn't know it. I know I won't be getting one of those electronic passes anytime soon.
Although I do understand the opposition: if I've got nothing to hide, I shouldn't worry, right?
No problem at all for me, my EZPass literally saves me hours a week since I'm on the NJ Turnpike regularly.
If I was planning on doing something seriously illegal, I'd just ditch the tag first. The cops who got caught claiming false overtime deserved it, not because they did wrong, but because they were stupid enough to think they weren't leaving an auditable trail behind them.
FIVDon't do anything wrong. Then you won't have to worry about the police tracking you. Problem solved, mmkay?
I used to work for a home contractor in the NYC suburbs. We crossed the Hudson river every day over the Tappan Zee bridge, and used EZ-Pass to pay the tolls. (Those out of the area, please be patient.) Now, contractors are notorious for taking cash payments whenever possible, and how much of this income they report in taxes is no doubt a small fraction.
So, what happens when any one of these contractors, or businessmen in similar circumstances, has their tax returns audited? How long will it be until EZ-Pass and other similar systems are used to "establish a pattern": meaning, evidence that you do business every day of the year, even though you report your income as seasonal, occasional or whatever?
And that's just taxes!!!
We're being watched, and the full implications of this are scary.
In Illinois, toll booths have cameras that photograph the license plates of vehicles that go through a toll lane without paying. OCR software deciphers the plate number and a ticket can be issued without human review.
A simple software change can expand the system to issue speeding tickets.
Obstinately insisting on stopping and using coins is probably just a meaningless gesture.
New York businessman Solomon Friedman ... Anyone with technical savvy, he said, could track radio signals from the cards. He designed a pouch a driver can store the card in, blocking the signal when not in the toll lane.
Dipshit didn't design it, you get one of those from E-Z Pass when you get your tag. Maybe he made one that looks a little less like an anti-static bag that a computer component would come in, bu it's not original.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
So, does anyone *really* believe that RFID tags won't be used for tracking?
Don't forget that other tracking device that we all carry, cell phones. It's constantly transmitting while powered on. Right now, the phone company only logs your location by cell site, a radius of many miles. Police could still find someone by triangulating their signal with specialized (meaning expensive) equipment, but E911 changes all that. They'll be required to pinpoint the location of any caller by 50-100 meters.
If you outlaw crimes, only criminals will commit them.
Here in California, we have FasTrak. They already acknowledge that they use sensors on the road to determine traffic conditions. They also said that you can opt-out of this. They even supply the mylar bags so that you don't get tracked this way. They sent out a letter informing users of this earlier this year and even sent an additional mylar bag.
The FAQ for Fastrak mentions the mylar bags in relation to carpool lanes. Same principle for traffic conditions.
How many times have technologies, Ideas, Concepts been introduced with the premis that it will not be used in ways other than those stated. Then boom new party, new legislation and new use. Example the Homeland Security Act. I think municipalites should be liable for incorrect use of intended resourses. E-ZPass systems are intended for electronic Toll Booths therefore that is what it should be used for anything else should be deemed as abuse !!
Well, yes, this is disturbing...but is it any different than the amazing records kept on us financially?
An awful lot of tollbooths also have license plate cameras, so who needs EZpass? Maybe they're just going to analog video recordings for now, but one assumes the license plate images are easy to OCR and that can be done in real time soon enough. I'm sure I could easily do it with a webcam. Of course once all tires have RFID, then every magnetic traffic light sensor and parking meter can have RFID readers built in.
It's possible to do this on a voluntary basis. For instance, I heard of a car rental agency that gave a big discount if you'd use a GPS that would alert them to excessive speeding. Coercion or good business? I could imagine a setup where insurance companies give people money off if they go along with this, and many might be willing to make that tradeoff.
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
The Houston area version is called EZ-Tag. In addition to the "go through the toll booths" quickly aspect, data is fed into the Houston TranStar system along most of the major freeways.
The TranStar site is great because you can easily get an idea of traffic conditions before leaving your home/office. Interesting data includes historical speed graphs.
The automatic garage doors at our office building can also be set up to read the EZ-Tag and automatically open the doors when we pull up.
...don't carry cell phones.
Ah, back to the good ol' days of the one-way pager!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One Pass To rule them all
One Pass to find them
One Pass to bring them all
And in the darkness, bind them
Thank you, Sir Rudy Giuliani, former NYC prosecutor, for pushing the E-Z Pass on us when you were NYC mayor, yapping about "court orders" and "due process" for access to the data. Now you can see all the motorists on the East Coast shining in your Palantir.
--
make install -not war
I don't see any comments referring to all the Law & Order episodes in which a crook is tripped up by their metrocard. EZPass is just one domain in which our privacy is at risk. Is this necessarily a bad thing, if for instance mass transportation info were available only under subpoena? Another question....
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
Someone builds their own EZ-Pass readers for fun and profit. I'd assume anyone with RFID engineering knowledge could find out what frequency the tag operates on, either by bringing some kind of radio monitor to an EZ-Pass booth or by taking the tag apart. Each TAG should send a unique response, encrypted or not. It could for example be used by high schools to make sure kids don't leave, for one thing. I'm sure the rest of the slashdot crowd could come up with plenty more big brother like scenarios.
In the last couple of years, there has been a greater push to get "tough on crime" (or appear so, but we won't split hairs here, will we?) which basically means "put more people in prison than we did last year"
/shrug
Because of this push and the fact that various law enforcement / "civil defense" agencies aren't really "up with the times" (sheer incompetence and the apparant inability to convict someone in a "regular court" might be a better way of stating this), in order to keep up - these same folks HAVE to turn to technology and to to push through poorly written legislation (or interpret it in interesting ways)in order to make their "quota".
Dunno, I probably have no credibility, but my belief that law enforcement is embracing all these new things is not because they are new, but they are too incompetent to keep up their statistics using traditional means.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Call me paranoid, but I don't see any reason to make my info publicly available unless absolutely required.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
With EZPass, you don't have the option to pay cash and remain anonymous - you MUST be linked to thing even though there's no good reason for this to be the ONLY option. I can understand that some people don't give a shit about privacy and want to billed, but I'm guessing that there's a LOT of people out there just like me (in the cashonly lane) who would rather prepay in cash and be left alone.
I'm wondering if it would be illegal to setup a EZPass proxy organization?
--
Power to the Peaceful
In Houston, Texas, the highway department has placed transponders all over the highway system... not just on the tollways, but on the freeways as well. This data is used to create very cool real-time maps of traffic conditions.
Since the transponders are compatible with other Amtech/TransCore systems, even vehicles from Oklahoma, Dallas, and other cities help keep the map up to date. In fact, the Dallas and Houston tollway systems are now interconnected -- the same tag will let you cruise through both systems.
Of course, the privacy implications of this convenience have been obvious from the beginning. If you have the need or desire for true anonymity, though, you're not in the market for a (non-disposable) cell phone or a TollTag anyway.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
My phone has a setting for that: Location on all calls or location on 911 calls only.
Remember the scene from Police Academy when mahoney and the other guy ties their flashlights to the dogs collars, so that when the dogs are running around at night Harris thinks they are picking up trash?
"Ain't I a stinka..." - Bugs
If you're going someplace you don't want recorded, put the freeway pass into the trunk. Duh.
--- Ban humanity.
Geeze people mine won't even read if its on the floor board cause the kids were playing with it... :(
So you pull it out to get over the bridge, then put it away, seems rather simple...The monitor you have to watch out for is the GPS unit in the black box on ALMOST EVERY CAR with airbags, it is used to help trigger the unit and can't be deactivated unless you turn off your airbags
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Most phones supporting E911 offer two options. One option leaves location tracking on all the time. The other option allows location tracking only after you call 911. While some criminals will likely be too stupid to change the setting, privacy advocates and serious criminals won't be.
If E911 were enabled for all calls without the consumer's permission, there would be a much larger consumer reaction. E911 is meant for security, not snooping.
Then why did they install sensors to gather this information?
What exactly do they mean it is not stored? Do they mean that today they don't store it but they plan to do so soon (as soon as you stop asking about it)? Do they transmit the data?
Seems like a misleading answer to me. The only question is how they are misleading.
From the article:
According to a newspaper report, New York City officials last month transferred 30 detectives out of the narcotics bureau for allegedly claiming false overtime. They were discovered passing through E-ZPass lanes miles from where they were supposed to be working.
Fire their asses.
_Any_ data that gets collected is there for the State to pick. Sooner or later, the State cannot resist. Of course, if the State gathers it, so much the easier.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
This is a PERFECT example of why us paranoids are so concerned about all this monitoring that is taking place.
It may be introduced as something 'good', but look how it gets used once it becomes prelevant..
This is only the beginning people.. wake the hell up. your rights are dissapearing
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The EZ-Pass transponder comes with an anti-static bag which blocks transmission of signals to the device, in case you may wish to pay the toll by other means. The EZ-Pass instructions implore you to keep the bag in your glove compartment at all times.
I wonder if this really works? While in tin-foil hat mode one day, I put my cellphone in an antistatic bag to see if the metalized plastic would block the signal. No such luck -- it only reduced the signal strength from an unscientific 2-out-of-4 bars to 1-out-of-4. Obviously, the metalized bag can act as a weak antenna and couple capacitively with the cellphone inside. In a further fit of boredom, I found I could kill reception by holding the antistatic bag in one hand and the grounded shield of a USB connector in the other (OK, I was bored).
Tin foil hat wearers be warned. An ungrounded antistatic bg will attenuate, but not necessarily kill RF signals.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
There could be advertisements personalized to our name and consumer characteristics triggered by RFIDs. Just like in Minority Report. Although they used biometrics rather than RFIDs.
Select the 85 percentile of that for the speed limit.
Enter politics, so write down 55 or 65 no matter how safe the road is.
Oh, and the standards used for road speed is still 1950's vehicles on skinny tires, no matter that even cheap cars have anti-lock brakes.
So yes, if speed limits had ANYTHING to do with what the roads could bear, perhaps we're respect the signs. Again: if the laws were based on reason (*cough*), they'd be respected. When speed limits are imposed because to raise ticket money, then it's wrong and the authoritive gov't needs to be kicked in the knees for it.
And instead of the police enforcing safe driving by ticketing people cruising along in the leftmost lane without passing anyone, or for lane changes without signals, or for eating/phoning while driving taking important attention away from piloting a 3000lb SUV at 90 feet per second...
No, they'll enforce "speeding laws" only.
Clearly, when I'm on a Calif Superhighway with few people on it - a road that's larger and its in better shape than parts of the autobahn I've seen - clearly, it's only safe for 65 when going 110 on the autobahn was almost dangerously slow. Because a sign says so.
Give me a driving test that 40% of the people fail the first time they try it, give me road that you have to have the "proven able" license to drive and I'll go for it.
RE: EZ Pass? It's in a lead bag (for film) in the glove box when I'm not going through a toll booth.
After our officials "promised" and swore up and down it would only be used for tolls, NJ and NY authorities have been caught MANY times abusing this.
Ready for your implanted RFID yet sir?
Bend over now
The parent may have an extra dose of soma for his obedience.
IBM has been running a commercial recently with three 'tech guys' discussing an EZ pass with two of them implying to the third that he's a fool for not having the pass. Whereas my reaction has always been that he's the smart one for not submitting to having his every trip filed in a database.
The potato it is uninformed.
Even having the tolls is complete lunacy, of all the better ways to pay for the roads slowing down EVERY single day to give money is about the worst way I can think of. Being it is the reality and having lived on the East Coast long enough to know there is no way it will change in my lifetime EZ-Pass is good. Besides it is so fun to wave at all the suckers waiting in the lines of 500 cars to pay 25 cents while I cruise through the EZ-Pass yelling "excuse me, excuse me... while I EZ-PASS YOUR ASS!!!".
winzip -scramble "scramble" carddata
They stamped the date and times on the paper toll tickets for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. When you exited the turnpike, they compared your exit timestamp with the entry timestamp you received when you entered the turnpike. They had a pre-printed table of elapsed times to translate into average miles-per-hour. If you arrived at the exit too soon, you automatically got a speeding violation. My dad narrowly avoided getting a ticket by being less than one minute short of the violation time. He did not tell the toll booth operator that we had stopped along the way at a roadside park and had a picnic lunch too :-)
but the courts threw it out, not because it was an invasion of privacy or a misuse of the system. It was tossed because there was no way to sync the clocks of the start and end punchers to get an accurate time, at least compared to VASCAR. This was 20 years ago, mind you.
With today's NTP servers and clients and mil-grade GPS, I think the states could defend this.
And I don't think this would piss people off, hell not even those dammed red light cameras elicit much rage.
You get 100 people who pay X amount a month to a pool. That money goes to 'activate' the EZpass devices. Then you hand out the physical device to people in the pool, randomly.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
RFID tags? In the neck? WTF?
They are NOT going to stick an RFID tag into your neck. It will be injected into your butt cheek.
The 407 ETR around here uses RF boxes velcroed to windshields to track drivers... but it also scans the licence plates of those without boxes, so it can mail bills to all drivers.
Since everyone that travels on it is in a database of sorts, I wonder what kind of restrictions the Ministry of Transportation has put on that data.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Then government representatives will be able to make political hay by showing up for photo-ops when the toolbooths are converted back for real-live-people mode.
Even better, when they do away with the toll booth altogether.
Virginia Beach did this a few years ago, and it worked out great.
Not soon enough, IMHO. Imagine how many countless lives could be saved by using this technology to get wreckless assholes who can't drive safely off the road.
But they're wreckless! Obviously they can drive safely if they haven't had a wreck!
I believe the E-ZPass system allows you to put a certain amount of money into an account (if you use a check at least). So if a theif did run off with your E-ZPass, then the most he could steal would be whatever you had in your E-ZPass account.
At any rate, if your tag was stolen--I think you would notice. Tag stealing usually involves breaking into and/or stealing the car too. In that case, just report your tag (and your car!) as stolen.
I think it's actually pointless to argue too much about EZ-Pass being tracked. As soon as its potential use in court becomes obvious, the states will just start including RFID tags embedded in license plates. I don't think *that* will be an opt-out situation...
The plain and simple solution here is that corporations should not be involved in primary law enforcement (tickets for reaching your destination too fast when using a toll device) and corporate should be barred from making a profit on primary law enforcement. (getting a cut from speeding/ red light cameras).
Basically the police have to be the first and primary intervener in these situations.
After reading the title I thought it was going to be about the police using the records to catch criminals, and the lawyers using them to help the innocent exonerate themselves. But I guess such balanced storytelling wouldn't sell as many ads, or something.
Anyway, if a criminal is dumb enough to use EZ-Pass, she deserves to get caught. As for the suggestion that it be used for automated speeding tickets, I think that'd probably be a great thing. When 50,000 people a day show up in court, they'll have to raise the speed limits, right? It won't happen because the government doesn't actually want people to slow down, though. They just want an excuse to pull over minorities and a nice steady revenue stream.
If you keep a daily routine & use the EZ Pass on your way to & from work, you would incriminate yourself if you didn't use the card, say, on the way home the same day someone in your office was murdered after hours. It would be circumstantial evidence, but nonetheless it would give the police cause to put your life under a microscope.
I think there may have been a Law & Order episode that revolved around this idea.
Normal antistatic bags have a very high resistance. Try it with a a pouch made of aluminum foil one day.
Of course it's going to be hard to read the display when it's in there.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
What about using Supermarket Rebate cards like Thumb Toms Reward card.
They know pretty much all you bought by item, incl. the Booze you bought that your soon to be Ex is going to use against you at the Custody trial.
So always swap those cards with friends, or better find one left at the counter.
Help fight continental drift.
So which is it and why would you want to scramble something when your not storing it somewhere?
If you're not storing, why bother with it in the first place?
I remember attending a series of lectures on sensor technology given by a professor from rtgers university, and one of points he made on the topic of these RF based toll booths in NJ was that given the cost of installation and maintainence it would have been substantially cheaper to PAY motorists a few dollars each time to use the road and not install the system at all!
Houston uses their tollway RFID tags to do this(almost). It's in use here to map speed between points around Houston. I expect that it's only a matter of time before someone thinks to use this for writing tickets. The description of how it works for Houston is here and here.
The Melbourne-Geelong freeway in Australia has license-plate tracking cameras that monitor vehicles along the road. If you arrive at a way-point "too soon" you get a speeding ticket in the mail!
Dr Kat.
My old computers never die, they just get upgraded with Linux.
I used to live there, and we drive the 'pike frequently. We often did in excess of 80 MPH, and we never got a second glance. Maybe it's because we had Jersey tags... I think NJ's state police (and thus the toll workers) like to pick on vehicles just "passing through".
It's that whole suburb-of-NY envy thing I think.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
These EZ-passes are very weak transmitters. I'm not sure how they work exactly, but they might even be passive ones where they take the energy from outside and retransmit using that.
In any case, a cell phone requires the ability for the cell tower to hear you from a few miles away. The EZ-pass works in a couple dozen feet.
-
Ok, so we've got a holy book and really funny dress.
My CowboyNeal, we've got a full blown religion on our hands.
(Oh great I'm surely going to goatse.cx for this.)
If they raised the speed limit, then cops wouldn't have probable cause to pull over black/hispanic people to check for drugs.
There's a less callous reason though: and it's not the passenger vehicles. Truckers tend to drive the speed limit, and the passenger vehicles average 10-15 above it, to manuver around the trucks. Raise the speed limit, and the trucks go faster, and the cars go even faster to avoid the trucks. Truckers won't voluntarily go slower than they're allowed to, esp. if it means higher pay for more miles traveled.
Drivers of 18-wheelers have no bones about cruising along at 85, and the trucks are quite capable of that and more. Raising the speed limit might increase the incidence of jack-knifed trucks, blowouts, etc. which are real problems (loss of life, congestion, etc.)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Why not just use optical sensors? That way, you get the average speed, as well as drivers that aren't tagged.
And it can be configured to automatically "refill" your toll account if it gets to a low/empty situation. If you don't do automatic refill, you will get the back tolls automatically deducted whenever you do refill the account. It's like paypal.
So it's better to let you through and keep track of the fact you owe back tolls then to impede progress.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I live somewhere where I have to drive three hours to use a toll road. If you have to pay tolls, get better senators and congressmen and get some pork-barrel money!
What I want is democratic speed limits - i.e. radar the trafic and dynamically set the speed limit based on the average trafic speed + some margin... Would be usefull. Wrecks are caused by different drivers going too fast and too slow...
-- $G
The Florida Turnpike Sunpass system (roughly same idea as EZ-Pass) TOS has/had a section on cooperation with law enforcement & courts. The Turnpike Enterprise would not turn over transponder records for the purpose of traffic enforcement, only for courts with specific purposes. I have no idea if 9-11 changed that, but seeing how Jeb Bush is in charge down here, I can't see it not changing.
On the other hand, if law enforcement where given just two weeks worth of transponder reports I believe Florida could rid itself of a budget crisis. Just image taking the family to Disney from your home in Miami and two weeks later getting several thousand dollars in fines and license revoke notices. Multiply that by the millions that use the system daily. Yeah, report 2 or 4 weeks worth of reports to FDLE and watch the chaos that ensues. Make the RIAA look more like amateurs.
Another thing to consider. At least in Florida, the Turnpike Enterprise wants to take the entire Turnpike to Sunpass eventually. Want to drive? Get a Sunpass. Then they could turn over transponder records to law enforcement without any problems.
(or they'd make political hay from mandating a no-evil-uses-with-EZPass policy, but this is Slashdot, so we all just assume a police state is inevitable, right?)
Ahh yes, our dear Slashdot, where tinfoil is headwear and 1984 is the bible.
Rent a clue.
People organize and strive to obtain more control over their environment. That tendency includes both governments obtaining more control over their citizens/subjects and citizens/subjects defending themselves against such control.
But institutional groups (such as governments) tend to go on for a long time, accumulating ever more power, while individuals are replaced from time to time. So if nothing is done about it the tendency will be for governments to accumulate ever more power, and become ever more oppressive, until they become so tyrannical that they're attacked from within and/or without and eventually overthrown (which may end up with an even worse situation).
The founders of this country recognized that tendency of government to accumulate ever more power. They prescribed a system of institutional restraints. But, because the government would eventual work its way around it, they ALSO prescribed ongoing watchfulness by the citizenry, so they can use NON-violent means to back the government off before it goes so far that only violent means will work. "Eternal Vigilance is the price of Liberty."
Which is EXACTLY what is going on now: New tech makes for new opportunity for spying and oppression. The government starts using it because there's no specific rule against it and it helps them "do their jobs". Eventually the citizens catch on and raise a ruckus. Sometimes this ruckus results in the creation of specific rules to suppress the misuse and restore the status quo ante (or even improve on it).
Slashdot is all about new uses of technology. "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters." And what matters more than government misuse of new tech to oppress the citizens?
So of COURSE it shows up here. Of COURSE it makes up a significant fraction of the news items. Anybody can post, but ordinary citizens greatly outnumber the elite controllers. So of COURSE the bulk of the voices are against the new misuses of technology.
No tinfoil hats required.
This is a very healthy process. It's exactly what the founders of the country prescribed, to keep the country from developing into a tyranny and prosperity from degenerating into civil war.
Ridiculing the people criticizing the government's misuse of technology is NOT "conducive to these ends". But it does tell us something about the ridiculer:
Either he's a fool -
or he's on the wrong side.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If you do not want your tag read, you can just keep it in the antistatic bag that it ships in.
Why do they insist on this devices being registered and what not? Why can't I anonymously buy and/or recharge it at a gas station? If it can be done with cell phones, it is certainly possible with these -- much simpler -- devices.
I suspect, it is so by design. We are dealing with the government, after all...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I've always wondered how this works with dirt. If you're not obsessed with having a shiney-clean looking vehicle, just splash enough dirt to obscure a few digits of the plate.
How good can these things OCR if an extra dash of dirt makes your 1 look like a 7, or your 5 an 8?
But why use these transponders which have to read unique EZPass numbers, when all they need is little pressure strips in the road, like at red lights, which would be much, much cheaper, and of course the privacy concerns would be greatly diminished?
I would put it to you, dear reader, that this transponder issue is dodgey. Here in Melbourne we have web based traffic maps, and signs on the road to say how many minutes until such and such exit, and it's all done very well and accuratly without the need for transponders or uniquly identifying each vehicle.
In fact, thinking it through a little further, if the ostensible purpose of this system is traffic management, why on earth would you *want* unique information? Surley you would be more interesed in aggeragate statistics...
The goverment could store nuclear waste in middle school cafeterias across the country, too. A lot of things are possible, but some we can weed out as being a little, shall we say, impractical or improbable?
Besdies, who wants all the angst ridden junior high school kids with superpowers that would inevitably result? :-)
--- Ban humanity.
read that article again. nowhere does it say they are getting rid of the option to pay with coins. they're getting rid of the option to pay w/ a token+50 cents in coins.
now, whether or not this means that eventually metrocard will be the only option is another thing entirely. hopefully that will not happen until they fix the major problem you mentioned, being the difficulty of buying one.
btw, there are many shops that sell metrocards. mostly convenience stores, newsstands, that sorta thing. your best bet, shockingly enough, is near a major bus route. however, the number of stores selling them went down recently because the mta cut the percentage of sales that the retailers got.
The E-Z Pass comes with a mylar/metallic bag (looks like a typical anti-static bag) in which you can place the unit if you don't want it to be detected (e.g., if you elect to pay cash at the toll booth you won't be charged on your EZ Pass account). That's why I just place it on the dash when I go through a toll, then I put it away.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
EZPASS to Jail! Do not collect $200!
Please?
Police and prosecutors love E-ZPass.
The above quote comes from the Bank of Canada's website has a FAQ on the use of currency and what you use and how you use banknotes to pay debt.
Does the vendor/retailer have to accept banknotes or coins. Not really, and I suspect that the law is probably the same in the US since the majority of this law is common or case law. An exception is The Currency Act which sets out limits on a tender of payment in coin. The specific limits can be seen at the above site."
Also it doesn't mean you can't use the ex pass either. You can keep it around and point it up if you ever need it.
Hmmm... Pie...
I know so many people who refuse to get EZ-Pass or a Metrocard... because "the man" is watching me (yes, that's right, upper class white people use "the man" more than any other group I know).
;-)
YET...
They have no problem using their cell phones, have blogs, PDA's, WiFi, and all sorts of other goodies. As if all those are real private and not giving off anything.
Someone could sit outside their home and monitor their internet usage... or just trace their cell phone.
Yep.. EZ-Pass is evil.
You get a nice letter in the mail asking you to pay your toll. The next offense is a large fine.
the speed would be somewhere over 140 MPH. ;)
In theory, you'd be absolutely right. The problem is that in the "real United States", things don't quite work as smoothly as they sound on paper or in theory.
The whole "speed limit" thing is very much a tool of govt. taxation. It gives federal govt. a manipulation tool to use on state govt. - for example. (EG. We declare that any state refusing to honor our recommendation of interstate highway speed limits being capped at speed XX will lose all federal funding for road improvements until they comply.)
At the local level, it gives municipalities ways to increase their tax revenue, too. (EG. We're short on funding for our police officers' salaries this year and need to find ways to make it up. Hey, let's take these small side-roads and reduce their speed limits by 5MPH. We can always use the excuse that it's for the safety of the kids playing outside. Then, we'll get to hand out tickets to all the cars going down that steep hill that don't keep their brakes on the whole time!)
There seems to be a line of thinking that "no matter what you set the speed limits at, people will exceed them". I largely disagree. People (generally) drive at speeds they feel comfortable and safe operating their vehicles at. The average car or truck built today handles quite well at speeds greater than the 65MPH (or even 55MPH) speed limits we impose on most of our highways. As long as that's the case, people will keep trying to exceed the speed limits. If speed limits went up to 80MPH tomorrow, though, for example, I doubt you'd see so many folks eager to go 90 or 100MPH. Smaller 4 cylinder cars are often barely able to maintain these speeds. Lots of folks don't have tires in good enough shape, or of good enough quality to make you feel safe changing lanes at those speeds either. Lastly, it's tough to see signs and interpret them before missing your turns at those speeds.
Govt. has very little incentive to make speed limits match the driving habits of the majority. They earn way too much money from not doing so!
how long till they install a radar speed checker to coordinate with the EZPass systems info on who you are? Yes, for solving crimes, this is a decent method of tracking those who dont mind giving up some privacy.... but then again, those who dont want to be caught, and have a grain of sense, wouldent have one of these. So it probably helps only when going after the -not as bright as the rest- crooks. As for devorce records... thats a bit more sketchy... I think a warrant or similar check-and-balance should be in place before the records are accessable. If lawyers can get at them... who knows what this world is comeing too.
-Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
I pulled my FasTrack apart and left the guts in my glovebox in the mylar bag, then glued the two halves together and left it attached to my window.
In San Diego, on the Hwy. 15 express lane, you can travel for free if you are in a carpool. In this case, you are instructed to put the transponder in the mylar bag they give you so you are not charged for a trip you are entitled to travel for free. They remind you to put the transponder back on your window if you are by yourself so you don't get pulled over when a cop notices you don't have a FasTrack on your windshield.
With this in mind, it's obvious that they're not using any sort of system to verify you are indeed in a carpool lane (the cameras at the checkpoint are even pointed down at the road, check if you live here)... with this in mind, I drive in FasTrack lanes for free.
The only thing that's ever happened is a letter from CalTrans to the effect of: "We have noticed a long period of inactivity on your FasTrack account. Occasionally, we encounter units whose batteries have died, blah blah... please come into the office to have your transponder checked.. blah blah...".. I've never responded to these letters, and it hasn't been an issue in over two years.
Fuck 'em.
The bridge running over the Delaware between Easton, PA and Phillipsburg, NJ uses E-ZPass not only for toll payment, but as well as speed traps. The posted 25 MPH bridge speed limit can be assessed not only in the NJ to PA route, but the opposite direction as well, where there is no toll. The Phillipsburg cops will tell you otherwise, but the Bridge Authority Commission regularly informs police on both ends to offenders. In fact, police keep regular tabs on liquor stores in NJ (particularly Norton's) and use subsequent recorded travel between states (which is illegal, with liquor and beer because of tax reasons) to prosecute offenders. The recent toll hike of 50 cents (and reduced 25 cents) has paid for extra sensors on both sides of the bridge, and not bridge maintenence itself.
Sorry, my 1994 Ford Escort Wagon has a 'black box' under the driver's seat which monitors several seconds of data before an airbag is deployed. I tried unplugging it and the car wouldn't start. I asked my mechanic about it and he confirmed it's purpose, but said it would only be used if I tried to 'total' my car.
I don't mind it being there, because it doesn't transmit anything, just records for the insurance to plug into to verify my claims. I WOULD have it 'worked around' if it was possible to transmit it's data without adequate security though, I consider my driving habits private and don't see how they shoud be available unless I am involved in an accident.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
The worst part is that you aren't allowed to put your transponder in any other car. That proves for me beyond all doubt that EZpass is about tracking, not about saving money or relieving traffic congestion.
I want EZpass to be like phone cards: Just go into a 7-11, pay cash for a $100 EZpass card, then go stick the card into your dashboard unit, or any dashboard unit in anybody's car.
Hell for that matter, why can't you go into a bank and pay $500 cash for a Visa card without your name on it?
You choose to opt in to the Ez-Pass system. If you're foolish enough to make a decision without knowing what the implications are, don't cry foul. It's the USA where you have the right to fall on your face at any moment based upon your poor choices. There isn't a Big Brother, the government could care less if you fail or succeed. It cares about if you're a hazard to the other citizens or not. Use or misuse of technology is subjective. We, the ones who make the lights blink and deliver your packets from point A to point B, build and maintain systems that work as advertised and are no different from firearm manufacturers. Here is the gun and bullets, how you employ them is up to you. They have no intrinsic morality, just functionality. Do the world a favor if you can't understand how to use them leave them alone.
Their fatal accident rate is something like 40% lower than ours (too lazy to ref, deal with it), even though they have no speed limits on their highways. Also unlike the US, they know how to drive; "driving right" is seriously enforced - failure to yield = loss of license.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Enough said.
"There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to track down criminials. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so things to be a crime that it is impossible to live without breaking any laws."
-- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
The fact that the transponders can be purchased and recharged with Anonymous Cash takes most of the problems away. Been using the system since 2000, They have NO identifying ID on me other than a PIN number used to log on web site to get statements that I set up upon leaving the registration info blank. I Have bought Anonymous SunPasses as gifts as well. No problem setting them up without info. I have been told by their staff that their computer system even has a checkbox for anonymous accounts to stop the checks of the blank info. Anonymous must be popular enough to have computer systems set in this way.
The article also mentions that the NYS Thruway has sensors to read the cards along the highway (not just at toll booths) but says the data is scrambled and not stored."
If they ever do start using that data, they'll be mighty confused by my driving. My car would disappear in between the toll booths. "I don't know, sir -- perhaps the car is driving through the woods, or flying, instead of using the thruway properly..."
I never wanted to put those velcro stickers on my windshield, so I keep the thing in its little protective sensor-blocking bag except when I'm using it.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
I thought the Feds a few years back repealed the federal speed limits. That's how we got numbers like 60, 70, and 75 that were not in the Federal rules, and Montana's for a time "Reasonable and prudent" limit. Speed limits are now up to the states alone.
Don't these things have a 5mph limit for when you go through the booths? I'd imagine there's a reason for this that'd have to do with keeping good records of the data. Do these road side sensors really track your movements, or do they just give an estimate of the amount of traffic passing by? If they can collect everyones EZPass id's as they drive by road side sensors at 70mph, what's the point of the 5mph lanes in toll booths? I can understand so you don't have people sneaking into the ezpass lanes and going with the traffic flow and not having an EZPass, but even so, what's stopping them from opening up the lanes a little wider and letting you do, say, 30 through them?
My mom's boss borrowed his brother's EZpass for his trip down south to VA or SC or something, and he thought you could just drive through without slowing down. A few days or weeks or whatever after he got home he got a envelope full of pictures of him flying through the ezpass lanes and just had to pay for all the tolls.. no speeding tickets or anything.
So I'm guessing if you go fast enough the sensors don't have enough time to pick up your information?
I was doing commuting for my old job and the EZpass was a godsend when the roads were trafficky. No way did I want to wait in a mile long line waiting for some retired guy to hand me my ticket.
So The Man knows I drove from Albany to Binghampton... Uh oh!
If you're not committing crimes, what do you have to worry about? I wouldn't say EZpass is any means of an invasion of privacy.
If I start getting brochures from various Cape Cod resorts anytime soon though, because they've heard I was in Cape Cod for a week last summer and they wanted to offer me their great vacation package, then I'll start getting worried.
In Toronto my sister's boyfriend was called into questioning because he apparently got off at an exit at a similar time that a crime took place close to his home vacinity. The fact that he's the same ethnicity as the person who was murdered (and most likely the guy who murdered him) shows how the police just looked at the records and started making suspects.
On another note, the company that owns the 407 apparently made it impossible for you to re-new your license if you had outstanding fines on your bill, although I think that may have gone to court etc and so forth.
I lived in NJ through driving age. Now I live in PA.
As a child, I heard complaints about how the tolls did not disappear after the roads were paid off. When I moved to PA, I learned that having somebody pump your gas was to cut down unemployment, not somehow a safety issue. I also heard that the toll systems kept people employed.
I was poor in both states. I know all the roads to use to avoid the tolls, but they are much slower. Now my time is worth more than the tolls, but a decade ago I often took the back roads to avoid tolls.
NJ is willing to implement EZ-Pass because it allows them to keep the tolls while disrupting the driving less. Obviously the tolls are important revenue. Also obvious is that they are using EZ-Pass for the convenience. They even moved the toll at the Delaware bridge to make the untolled exit easier, and to build a fast lane for EZ-Pass users.
PA does not have an untolled exit; you must give PA money to use the Delaware bridge. PA is also building new exits on the Turnpike that only accept EZ-Pass. There was a rumor that EZ-Pass would only pay for itself if enough people ran the tolls and were fined. Then it was rumored that enough people were not doing it. Now PA is making it impossible to exit without EZ-Pass. And if you think that signs make anything obvious, you have never driven in PA. (I made a wrong turn today because the signs said the left lane turns left and the right lane turns right. The road did continue straight, but I think you had to drive between the lanes to stay on it.)
People like tolls and taxes on gas because they believe that the revenues are collected from the people who benefit from their use. They need to feel this money is used for the roads. If it was announced that toll money was going to be used for education, people would revolt.
If you wonder what NJ does with the money, try driving in PA. The roads are awful compared to NJ. I saw NJ repave about 40 miles of the Parkway over a weekend, one lane per day. PA cannot repave 20 miles of a highway in less than 2 weeks. It took PennDot 6 months with one lane closed at all times to "widen" a 2-lane highway to 2 lanes with better shoulders. Part of this may be because NJ uses blacktop and PA roads are typically concrete. Part of it may be because PennDOT is a very unorganized and/or corrupt department.
NJ roads are some of the best I have seen. A report in the 80s listed the Garden State Parkway as the safest road in the US, and I wondered how it could be when it was usually 70mph bumper-to-bumper traffic. A factor is that in NJ you always move right when a faster car is coming behind you. NJ drivers keep moving in heavy traffic; it takes an accident, bad weather, or a patrol car to get them to slow down (a little.)
PA has some of the worst roads I have seen. PA passed a "stay right" law recently, but no one noticed. The left lane of most 2 lane roads often moves slower than the right lane. And when it is bumper-to-bumper in PA, everybody slows down to 20mph and stops erratically. This may be necessary to avoid all the potholes.
In NJ, I worried that salt from the ocean and the weather would ruin my cars. In PA, I worry that the roads and the potholes are going to shake my cars apart. (Do you plan to have a flat tire at least once per year?)
Some factors for the difference in road quality:
- NJ is a richer state with a denser population. - The tolls contribute to road upkeep, and...
- NJ has 2 toll roads that cross the state in different directions, while PA only has one and it misses most of the state. (Not that you'd want to go there.)
- NJ just cares more about roads, and has a DOT that works.
---
Side note: I refuse to get EZ-Pass, even though driving to my best client almost requires the PA Turnpike, because I believe the issues in this article are inevitable. I don't have a tinfoil hat, but why make it easy for them? (And I drive sports cars that get lower mpg when under 70mph.)
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
That's a sensitive government document you're linking to there; please send me at least $70,000 and I'll promise not to tell. :)
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
and not tin foil hat enough.
And possibly unamerican.
Where's your Damn The Man attitude son?
It is "couldn't care less".
The rest of your post is as accurate as your useage of that phrase.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
The flip side of that you've built a large resivior of statistical evidence that starts to show speeding isn't inherently evil, and in and of itself doesn't cause problems.
At which point arbitrary speed limits become weak, and punishing bad behavior becomes a more enticing metric.
Aside from small towns, speed limits exist more as a disincentive because people dying and killng each other on the highway is monsterously expensive.
While people get prickly about such intrusions into sampeling their lives, the information gathered could tell us a lot, and improve traffic flow. Thus saving tax dollars that won't be needed to add lanes, and possibly provide a nice chunk of time back maybe a whole day a year that you didn't spend in traffic.
If trucks are such good shields, how come my EZ-Pass got charged while it was in the truck being shipped to me?
It is "couldn't care less".
I use chat rooms a lot, and the number of times I sit and say that to my monitor is unbelievable.
I couldn't care less means you are at the absolute minimum interest/caring level possible for the issue, I could care less is the opposite, your disinterest level hasn't bottomed out yet.
Thank you for being the first person I have seen point out this glaringly lazy figure of speech.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
"They come with sticky tape for a reason."
Yes. Presumably to plaster across your fat mouth. Another big talker with a stupid opinion. Please. Save it for your dog. He doesn't care either, but at least he's forced to listen to you.
"No need to mention that many people are dead from speeding."
No need to mention that you make stuff up and present it as fact. I drove 120 MPH yesterday. I didn't die. In fact, I'm better than ever.
"he danger comes from people who drive aggressively"
There's no such thing as "aggressive driving". Its a buzzword, like "Intellectual Property" (no such thing as Intellectual Property, either. There's Copyrights, Trademarks, and Patents. That's it.)
The trouble is, most people suck at driving, and they suck hard. So if you actually know how to drive, have a fast car, you end up having to get around these morons. The morons are terrified of just moving, so anybody who gets around them is "driving aggressively". I wish most of the drivers would just die, and I intend on driving in such a way to give the other guy that opportunity.
nd then we're not all doing 85
Somewhere I read the optimal speed limit to set on a road is that at which 85% of the drivers will naturally not exceed.
My experience is that there are plenty of roads where the limit is set lower than the 85 percentile. In fact, I suspect they did the opposite and set the limit at the 15 percentile...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Ooohhh,
while we're on the subject, and trust me, I don't normally indulge in grammar nazi posts, but this one bugs me, you don't, strictly speaking, mean 'disinterest'; you mean 'lack of interest'.
If you're not interested in something, you're uninterested. If you're disinterested it means that you have no personal bias, as in no interest in it.
For example, a Judge presiding over the case is hopefully disinterested in the verdict, but I'd hope he wasn't uninterested.
Posting without karma bonus due to flagrant OTness of this post
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
Ah, but the marketing behind the product specifically omits police use. And people make decisions based on what they're told publicly.
And it makes sense to do so. There's simply too much going on for a person to do detailed research on every decision they're expected to make. That's why we have a legislative body in the first place, to make major decisions for the general public, so the general public can get on with their lives.
It's the activists, outside the legislative body, that focus on specific issues who take care to study in detail the decisions made by the legislative body and bring problems to the public attention.
If you're a member of the "general public," and you ignore activists, then, and only then, are you being irresponsible with regard to laws and general government activity.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
...don't speed.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
...if the light turns green, test fails.
The cellphone experiment is invalid.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
should ever be telling someone else to "rent a clue"
Change what you "need"
THE RULES
by Douglas Adams
In the old Soviet Union they used to say that anything that wasn't forbidden was compulsory; the trick was to remember which was which. In the West we've always congratulated ourselves on taking a slightly more relaxed, commonsense view of things, and forget that common sense is often just as arbitrary. You've got to know the rules. Especially if you travel.
A few years ago--well, I can tell you exactly, in fact, it was early 1994--I had a little run in with the police. I was driving along Westway into central London with my wife, who was six months pregnant, and I overtook on the inside lane. Not a piece of wild and reckless driving in the circumstances, honestly, it was just the way the traffic was flowing; but anyway I suddenly found myself being flagged down by a police car. The policemen signalled me to follow them down off the motorway and--astonishingly--to stop behind them on a bend in the slip road, where we could all get out and have a little chat about my heinous crime. I was aghast. Cars, trucks, and, worst of all, white vans were careening down the slip road, none of them, I'm sure, expecting to find a couple of cars actually parked there, right on the bend. Any one of them could easily have rear-ended my car--with my pregnant wife inside. The situation was frightening and insane. I made this point to the police officer, who, as is so often the case with police, took a different view.
The officer's point was that overtaking on an inside lane was inherently dangerous. Why? Because the law said it was. But being parked on a blind bend on a slip road was not dangerous because I was there on police instructions, which made it legal and hence (and this was a tricky bit to follow) safe.
My point was that I accepted I had (quite safely) made a manoeuvre that was illegal under the laws of England, but that our current situation, parked on a blind bend in the path of fast-moving traffic, was life-threatening by reason of the actual physical laws of the universe.
The officer's next point was that I wasn't in the universe, I was in England, a point that has been made to me before. I gave up trying to win an argument and agreed to everything so that we could just get out of there.
As it happened, the reason I had rather overcasually overtaken on the inside lane was that I am very used to driving in the United States where everybody routinely exercises their constitutional right to drive in whatever damn lane they please. Under American law, overtaking on the inside lane (where traffic conditions allow) is perfectly legal, perfectly normal, and, hence, perfectly safe.
But I'll tell you what isn't.
I was once in San Francisco, and I parked in the only available space, which happened to be on the other side of the street. The law descended upon me.
Was I aware of how dangerous the manoeuvre I'd just made was? I looked at the law a bit blankly. What had I done wrong?
I had, said the law, parked against the flow of traffic.
Puzzled, I looked up and down the street. What traffic? I asked.
The traffic that would be there, said the law, if there was any traffic.
This was a bit metaphysical, even for me, so I explained, a bit lamely, that in England we just park wherever we can find a parking space available, and weren't that fussy about which side of the street it was on. He looked at me aghast, as if I was lucky to have got out of a country of such wild and crazy car parkers alive, and promptly gave me a ticket. Clearly he would rather have deported me before my subversive ideas brought chaos and anarchy to streets that normally had to cope with nothing more alarming than a few simple assault rifles. Which, as we know, in the States are perfectly legal, and without which they would be overrun by herds of deer, overbearing government officers, and lawless British tea importers.
My late friend Graham Chapman, an idiosyn
While you are 100% correct about signalling, you are dead wrong about being hit from behind. In every state I've lived in, if you hit someone from behind, regardless of what they were doing, you are at fault. You need to be able to stop, which in most cases means STOP TAILGATING. Sure there are plenty of stupid things people do, but the law says you need to be prepared to stop if necessary.
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
"As for devorce records... thats a bit more sketchy..."
It's not "a bit more sketchy" at all in a custody battle. I would have no qualms at all about using this kind of information to protect my kids, and I doubt if you would either. (Especially if you're a man. You know the old saying - a woman will only lose custody if she's both a hooker AND a drug addict.) I enjoy a good lawyer joke as much as the next guy, but I'll be forever grateful to the pit bull I hired, who was very good at digging up "leverage".
" a 3000lb SUV "
:).
My Mini Cooper only weighs 2500lbs, I think you need to up that figure a bit for an SUV!
OK it's a big overglorified rfid tag. Pop the case open and put a momentary contact switch inline with the coil. When you want to use the device just hit the button. Besides the tracking of when you went through the tolls (last I checked they had a camera pointed at your plat anyway) it clears things up.
External hacks would also be easy it's all of some antistatic platic to attenuate the signal.
Now take this all with a grain of salt I live in CT where we dont have tolls.
No sir I dont like it.
If privacy doesn't matter anymore, why not build ez-tags into all license plates so all cars will have them? States are sharing drivers license databases (not really a national id card) so why not have the license plates become smartcards and allow those 'smart plates' to accept subscriptions to regional transportation authorities? That is if there is no need for privacy.
There is a law or IRS regulation requiring IRS notification of any cash purchase of $10,000 or more. I remember seeing the notice hanging in the local Radio Shack back in the early 90's
It's actually an IRS regulation for banks (forget if it applies elsewhere or not). Banks have to report any money transfers over $10k.
It gets better. It is also illegal to structure any financial transaction so as to avoid the reporting requirement. So it is also illegal to make two transfers of $9,999, and $1. (and illegal to make two $5k transfers, or any amount if you are trying to avoid reporting it.)
How do they determine if you're trying to avoid it? If your last name ends in a vowel, then you're trying to avoid it. (go watch the Sopranos if you don't get that last joke.)
Here in Mass, they tried something like that when the Speedpass first came out on MA 90.
People stopped using the passes, and people stopped getting them. It pretty much halted the adoption of the whole Speedpass concept.
They stopped issuing tickets, and Speedpass slowly ramped up again.
If they use it to issue speeding tickets, then people will go back to using change and toll booths. Getting rid of toll booths is not plausible anytime in the next few decades, as out of state and out of country drivers can't be expected have a pass in their car.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
They already have radar speed checks linked to the eZpass. I've reveived notice from eZpass talling me that they'd revoke my ezpass if I were clocked going through the tool booth too fast again.
While this is still limited to ezpass, and I did not get a ticket, it would take nothing to calculate your average speed based on the time between toll booths, and just mail a ticket to the address registered with eZpass.
Wouldn't suprise me in the least.
I remember hearing a story that I thought was pretty clever. It may be urban legend, or some of the details that I recall may be incorrect.
The law at this time was that any "document" that contained certain pieces of information (your name, account number, bank name and address, payee, amount, date, signature, etc.) was a check and had to be accepted as such. I have some older account doucments that actually contain a section on how to draw up your own checks.
A group of steel workers in Pittsburgh were annoyed at paying some tax or fee to the government. They marked all the pertintent information onto steel construction plates, the kind used to temporarily cover holes in roadways. Each of these plates weighs several hundred pounds. The courts required the government to accept the payment, but the laws pertaining to negotiable paper were rapidly updated to prevent a recurrence.
I've wondered why my 2001 Volvo S40 (5 gear auto trans, 1.9L 160hp turbocharged engine) gets about 30mpg on the highway if I drive 60-65 like I'm supposed to, but got 39 when I was driving home between 75-85 late one night with my eye on the immediate fuel economy, and gets about 32-33 if I drive about 80, ignoring fuel economy. I don't go anywhere terribly hilly. Does this have anything at all to do with the turbo? Any other rational explanation?
Grüß Gott aus Bayern!
> I don't see why anyone would want to live in New York city anyway considering how crowded it is and how big of a terrorist target it is. I prefer living in a quiet midwestern suburb of less than 10,000 people. Much less stress and crime, no worries about terrorism, etc.
Well, try being an actor, or working in the garment industry, or the financial markets. Or, for even more fun, try being black or Hispanic.
Virg
FP!!!
The E-Z Pass card happens to be just yet another RF ID tag. Place the tag behind a metal shield and the thing won't work. Put it in a metalized anti-static bag (Instant Faraday Cage...) and it worn't work. So, how would the EZ Pass readers see a tag through large metallic objects, hm?
How are they perfect? EZ Pass works by placing a tag in the windshield or front bumper of the vehicle in question. Better yet, how would they "jam" the signal. Jamming implies emitting interfering RF energy- the trucks might shield the signal coming from the reader if the tag's not in the proper place (windshield or bumper), but that's not the same thing and isn't really applicable in this context.
Okay, what "speeding sensors"? It doesn't take special sensors or rocket science to determine that someone was speeding by computing the time it should take from one reader point to another and then determining how long the tag took (by way of being on the vehicle) to go from one read point to another. Shorter times implies speeding at or above a given average speed at some point on the trip.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
More RF power causes it's own set of issues. The reason why the licenses have been granted for the RFID systems in question is that they won't interfere with other services. Raising the power exceeds the limits set by the licenses and causes interference with other services. You might find someone in the FCC willing to bend the rules for you and increase the allowed power for the reader units, but that's not likely. Secondly, raising the RF power doesn't do much for you with these tags. There is the very real fact that pushing more RF energy out doesn't 100% correlate to more range. Most of the RFID devices out there are maxed out for range because of the frequencies chosen, antenna sizes on the tags, etc. Raising the RF power with these passive or battery assisted tags as are used with the EZ Pass systems will merely shorten the response time for the tag to turn on and broadcast it's ID info.
And, before you say I don't know what I'm talking about, I might want to point you to my resume and point out that one of my previous jobs was with Amtech who is now a division of TransCore. Amtech makes most of the tags used by these systems and I developed one of the EZ-Pass type systems in use for parking and ground transportation management at DFW International Airport.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I found when I stopped speeding that it had a positive impact on my stress level:
When I see a cruiser I no longer need to panic/hit the brakes.
When I am going somewhere, I am not deluded into thinking that I can make up 5 minutes late departure in 10 miles of driving in excess of the speed limit. Most of the time driving fast and frequent lane changes do not really help.
I don't need to get angry at the bozo who is going slower than I want to go who is hogging the fast lane.
You'd be amazed at the number of vehicles you pass when driving the speed limit.
I don't care if they write tickets automatically based on cameras, toll booths, airplanes, etc.
Slowing down was one thing that helped me add margin to my life. My stress level is lower, I plan better, and I have 0 risk of speeding tickets and high insurance.
Something to consider.
I am pleased to report that a few jurisdictions have raised the highway limit to 70.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
PS - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you want to know more, please email me.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
men.
I lived in NJ through driving age. Now I live in PA.
I've been stuck in Harrisburg since September. There's light at the end of the tunnel, though: my wife and I are moving back to New England this Summer. Pennsylvania seems determined to lose all of its intellectual and professional capital.
I saw a billboard on I83 the other day which said something along the lines of, "The crisis will settle down when all the doctors have left Pennsylvania." My wife's a doc, and the crappiness of her career path options here is just one of many reasons why we're getting the hell out of here ASAP.
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
It's not really a transmitter as such. It's a backscatter device and as such, it's not transmitting- it's reflecting.
m l 6 80b.pdf f
What do I mean by this? Picture a mirror. Now, picture putting an LCD immediately in front of the mirror. Operating the LCD impinges a modulation on the light, conveying information back to the light source.
In the above example, the mirror did not transmit any energy to convey information back to the carrier power source (the light...). It merely reflected it back.
With an EZ Pass style tag, it's the same sort of thing, only with RF power instead of light. Of course, the tag pulls some energy to power itself up and drive the modulation circuitry, but it's not actually transmitting in the traditional sense of the concept.
For more info, I suggest reading the following links:
http://www.rfid-handbook.de/rfid/types_of_rfid.ht
http://www.microchip.com/download/appnote/rfid/00
http://legwww.epfl.ch/research/pdf/back_scattf.pd
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
From the Bureau of Engraving and Printing .gov address):
(Curiously, not a
Legal Tender: A Definition
Section 102 of the Coinage Act of 1965 (Title 31 United States Code, Section 392) provides in part:
" All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."
This statute means that you have made a valid and legal offer of payment of your debt when you tender United States currency to your creditor. However, there is no Federal statute which mandates that private businesses must accept cash as a form of payment. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
( http://www.moneyfactory.com/document.cfm/18/110)
What were you expecting?
No one who is pro war ... should ever be telling someone else to "rent a clue"
... and a time for every purpose ... a time for war, a time for peace.
Where do you get the idea that I'm pro-war?
What my sig indicates is that I am is anti-knee-jerk-anti-war. (And anti-knee-jerk-pro-war while I'm at it.) Back in the 60s and 70s I put my LIFE (and carreer) on the line opposing a war.
War is a VERY BAD THING. But, very occasionally, it is MUCH better than the available alternatives. On those occasions being anti-war leads to wholesale death and destruction.
In those days there were a couple slogans bandied about: "Give Peace a Chance" and "Boycott the War Machine". And in those days, IMHO, they were the appropriate. The US government was using the threat of the draft to enslave a generation, "channeling" it into government-desired occupations in an attempt to hold off a depression, mortgaging future generations with printing-press money that would eventually have to be paid off with real taxes, and refusing to push the war to an end - either victory OR abandonment. Corporations, as always, were doing whatever they perceived as making a profit. So opposing the war politically and shifting the profit/loss equation economically were reasonable moves.
But THESE days the situation is different. In Iraq the US "gave peace a chance" for over a decade, while hundreds of thousands of Iraquis (including our allies in the LAST skirmish) died. And international terrorists (regardless of whether they were supported by Iraq) viewed our restraint as a sign of weakness, and began a campaign of attacks, culminating in one that resulted in more deaths than Pearl Harbor. So the US went to war. So now the US is in a situation where, if it backs out again, terrorists will be further emboldened and will stage still more attacks. We've taken on the bullies, and we have to follow through.
But the anti-war political machine created in opposition to the Vietnam engagement is running on regardless. And certain major corporations (mainly the same media conglomerates that we flame for other reasons here) are using the money they make to oppose the war regardless of its appropriateness (just as certain corporations supported the Vietnam engagement decades ago). So sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
To everything there is a season
(But more importantly, inverting the slogans is FUNNY - in a REALLY black-humor way. When disaster strikes and people are dying all around, black-humor provides a release of tension that improves odds for the survivors.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
In Oklahoma, my PikePass transponder now beeps when it is read. This provides me with at least a little assurance that my transponder isn't being read surreptitiously. Of course, I'm sure the Oklahoma Transportation Authority could program their own equipment so that some of the "secret" (not toll related) receivers wouldn't make the transponders beep.
I agree with everything you said, except that part about an SUV being 3000 lbs. My neon was 2750, and the category that goes from 3000 to 3499 lbs is the medium passenger car category, including things like the ford mustang and taurus, dodge viper and intrepid, etc.
Try 4000 lbs, or anything over 2 tons, metric or otherwise. That's a big vehicle. Me hitting something that ways 3000 pounds is like me hitting another neon. Funny that I don't fear that nearly as much as an expedition or suburban.
About the licensing thing. Yeah. What's the point of having them if they're given to everyone. It's becoming just another tax, it doesn't keep the ninnies off of the road. The going solution seems to be to impose really low speed limits to lower the bar to entry because we don't want to have an efficient and effective public transportation system.
There should be special travel lanes or roads for those more capably equipped and willing to prove their ability to a higher standard. The public regulations for roads are improperly enforced and ludicrously placed. A law that makes most / all citizens criminals is usually a badly formed law. I cite prohibition. Hell the cops don't travel the speed limit when they're moving about casually, why should we?
- theed
I am in KingOfPrussia and my best client is in Horsham (WillowGrove exit). I went to NJ for Thanksgiving. I have not been west much recently.
I assumed that if they are adding an EZPass-only exit between 2 exits that are only 4 miles apart, they would be adding them farther west where the exits are 20 miles apart.
There are usually many dual EZPass/ticket pickups for entering the Turnpike. Yes there are usually only 2 lanes for paying the tickets, but since most commuters are using EZPass, I rarely have to wait. (It helps that I refuse to drive near rush hour.)
Anyway, I pass the only EZPass-only exit all the time, and was "assuming".
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
> Let's see: you're breaking the law, it can be demonstrated through simple physics, here's a ticket.
Does simple physics determine that it was actually you driving the car?
Does simple physics demand that the clocks at the entrance and exit points be synchronized?
Does simplt physics prevent addition errors on the part of the toll ticket taker, or incorrect charges because of inaccurate OCR?
A real traffic stop reasonably reduces all of these factors, whereas an automated system cannot.
Virg
Yes, I have a 6-speed manual. 6th gear: 1100rpm cruising at 65mph, 1600rpm for 90mph.
The time I tested it was during a very long trip on flat ground. An entire tank of gas on cruise control at 85mph averaged 23mpg. An entire tank of gas at 70mph averaged 21mpg. These numbers were incredible since I usually get 18mpg, and 15mpg in city traffic. I hope to get to Montana someday so I can try the test at 100mph.
I did the tests; I have no idea about the theory behind these numbers. Should a slightly higher RPM marginally use enough more gas to offset the additional miles covered at a higher speed? What is the formula? Please tell me so I can figure the optimal speed. Maybe it would it help with speeding tickets to demonstrate that I was being economically and environmentally aware through using less gas by driving 90mph.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
There's more than meets the eye here. There are areas (the New York Metro area and greater Atlanta are the two I'm familiar with) where, if you're not travelling above the speed limit during rush hours, you're actually blocking the flow of traffic. It's unreasonably unsafe to drive at 55 mph when the rest of the traffic is travelling at 70 mph, but that action is the only method to avoid ticketing. A bad situation all around.
Virg
...more like -1, Was Trolled
...I'd wait at a rest stop on I95 North and when one pulled up I'd toss my EZ pass into the back of a pickup truck with NY plates (I live in MD)
Then I'd head for Florida... the gateway to the Carribean.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Police regularly use credit card records to track suspects movements as well. I wouldn't be surprised if divorce lawyers did the same. Convenience often comes with a price. I have no problem with that. I would have a problem if the old fashioned way of doing things, i.e., with cash, were eliminated.
Actually, you could be right. But I know this was definitely a problem in the past. My wife grew up in Florida, for example, and specifically remembers the state fighting with the fed. govt. because they didn't want to reduce the speed limits on their highways, and consequently, were going to lose their federal funding.
I also know Montana has always been one of the most self-sufficient of the 50 states. I could easily see them simply posting a "reasonable and prudent" speed limit, rather than a number, no matter what federal govt. recommended to them. "What? We lose all of our federal funding? Ok, fine then! We'd rather have that than you telling us what to do!"
I don't care what they feel. But they must obey rules, or stick to a passenger seat.
Although, "I could care less", used sarcastically, has the meaning of the other.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
If you don't read the docs that came with your EZPass whos fault is that?
Damn, quite blaming others because you are an impatient dumbass who thinks the world revolves around you.
and those aren't really data transponders, but simply series of electromagnetic coils in the road bed
No, Houston really is using the toll transponders to track traffic.
From the "How It Works" page:
The system uses vehicles equipped with transponder tags as vehicle probes. The main source of vehicle probes are commuters using the "EZ-Tag" automatic toll collection system installed by the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA). Transponder tag readers are placed at 1 to 5 mile intervals along freeways and HOV lanes. Each reader senses probe vehicles as they pass a reader station and transmits the time and location of the probes to a central computer over a telephone line. As the probe vehicles pass through successive AVI readers, software calculates average travel times and speeds for a roadway segment. The averages are made available to software which provides the data for the Houston TranStar web site.
The confusion with traditional technology is understandable, since Houston is mentioned as the first to use AVI instead of pressure/magnetic/optical systems, each of which has the major drawback that they can't actually tell how fast any one car travels from point A to point B (where A and B are miles apart).
On the same site, though, is a cool rail corridor real-time map, which probably uses optical sensors. I was watching it one time as a "train" appeared to go back and forth between two crossings... I figure the "train" was more likely a stray dog triggering the sensors.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.