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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."
EZ-Pass commissions have always operated under the promise that this would not be done. If it were ever to be enacted, you would see a lot of people dumping EZ-Pass, since many of the roadways in EZ-Pass areas have average traffic speeds over the speed limits, and the cost of even a small speeding ticket is ridiculous with the current insurance regulations and policies.
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
In nearly every place that is not enough evidence to prove speeding. Similar things were tried with paper toll booth tickets, and judges tossed them out.
That said, why does anyone have a problem with this? Highways are public. Where you go is [largely] public information. If you have a problem with speeding laws, change the laws, not the enforcement. Would people be less upset if they paid tons more money to post a guy with photographic memory at each toll booth and watch everoyne go by?
The only problem I have is that people aren't more honest about the system.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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?
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Power to the Peaceful
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.
Already been done in England.
Someone once recounted to me how a video-based speed camera would take a snapshot of the plate, do OCR on it...and, wait for it....do a lookup against the UK motor vehicle registry. About 500 feet down the road was a digital sign, and it would display personalized messages. As in, "Mr. Bean, you are going over the speed limit, please slow down".
I think he said it freaked out people enough(surprising, given how London has more security cameras than people -wanna see 1984? Go to the UK) that it was pulled.
Please help metamoderate.
Even if they operate under the premise that it will not be done today doesn't mean they won't change their minds in the future.
That is one reason I really don't trust those 'ezpass' systems. Those pushing this tech will swear on a stack of bibles that they aren't doing, and have no plans to do anything evil with the information they are capable f collecting. The easy way to find out exactly how truthful about this they are being is to try to buy one anonymously ith no identification with cash. You simply can't do it here in texas from what I understand. Sure, they can get your plates off the cameras they inevitably install, but simply tracking the comings and goings of a tag is much easier.
If there were no nefarious intentions on their part, I'd be able to stop by the local quickie mart, buy one of these things with cash, and simply use it until it ran out. Then I could either recharge it, or get another one. This isn't going to happen, because they want to be able to easily track you wherever you go, just in case you might do something naughty.
I can't believe we allow them to put up cameras all over the place on light poles, stoplights, and the like. I'm abaolutely amazed that there isn't an incredibly high mortality rate on them, because they deserve it.
This is an ex-parrot!
This is where I start to lose the will to live. If you start with the assumption that speed limits are too low and so speeding is NOT dangerous (at least its not when I do it), and you assume catching speeders is solely a cash raising excercise automated capture seems evil.
If we have automated capture that catches and fines 100% of offenders - and that fucks up peoples lives far enough - the law will change. And then we're not all doing 85 in a 70 limit. We're doing 85 in an 85 limit.
Automated capture also costs less, on the whole, so the good policemen and women can be out hunting down murderers and the like - instead of fighting the endless war against speeding.
Personally - I find that quite attractive - assuming everyone stops being pussies and actually gives a fuck about CHANGING laws, not just BREAKING them.
SHIT - my hat!! my hat!!! WHERES MY TINFOIL HAT!!!!! that fucking cat has taken it again I bet!