blah

The Illinois Tollway Authority (a.k.a the MAN) seems to be cracking down on people who blow through the toll booths without paying. I know of a few people who have recently received $1000 and $2000 fines for failure to pay! For each toll violation I think it's a $50 fine plus, to add insult to injury, the skipped toll. They received letters from the tollway authority with pictures of their license plates taken by those cameras at the toll booths.

So the moral of the story is that if you decide to blow through a toll booth without paying, make sure you have that James Bond flip-up license plate gadget working.

Ulrich

Question: Does the pic only show the license plate, or the entire car? And if the latter, does it show the car from the front or the back?

With the new transponders not making any beeping sound anymore when you go through a toll gate, you have no idea if you got charged or not. I've often had the feeling that the transponder or the receiver at the gate did not work, especially the toll gate at the O'Hare exit on I-94 seems to be prone to malfunction due to the radar emmission from the airport (and this was even admitted to me by an employee of the toll authority last year). If they don't show the entire car from the front, how do they want to prove that you blew through the toll gate rather than that the transponder malfunctioned?

And even if they have a picture of the front of the car, I keep my I-Pass in that useless little coin holder (or whatever it is supposed to be) in mY S2000. There is no way that any camera would be able to see it in there, and that same TA employee told me that I did not have to stick it into on the windshield as long as I put it some place where the signal could be picked up by the gate...

I could see some problems for the toll authority enforcing those tickets.

blah

The pictures I saw were from the back and it was of the entire car. Sort of a 3/4 rear shot.

I don't think you have to worry about a few skipped tolls. From what other people have theorized, the tollway authority waited until people had skipped out on 20 or more tolls before going after them. This theory led to the complaint I heard from most people that got busted - "if they only told me earlier, I would have started paying the tolls" Not quite sure how that logics works.

The point you bring up is what one guy is claiming. He said that he pays the tolls (by cash, not by transponder), but doesn't stop long enough for the money to be registered. I'm not sure if that defense will work though. I'm sure with the tollway, its guilty until proven innocent. With I-Pass holders, I would hope you could make that claim though. Since your I-Pass transponder is supposed to be tied to your license plate #, you at least have an alibi.

Not sure if you know this already, but next time you go through a toll booth look for the blue & yellow lights that are right after the toll booth (often on top of the stop/go lights). A blue light means your I-Pass registered. A blue & yellow light mean your I-Pass registered and your account is under $10.

Ulrich

When I zip through the express lane at 60 mph, I barely have time to look at the lights. Besides, the light phases are so long that it's hard to tell whether that blue light is from me or the guy in front of me.

Shinji

I just ran the $2 Skyway toll last week...now I'm kinda worried being nailed with a $1000 ticket. I got 4 tickets the past 2 weeks already....