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i am a transportation engineer by trade and deal with this kinda stuff, cameras, electronic toll collection etc... so called intelligent transportation systems. well, although it certainly is possible to measure speed with toll tags, it is not being enforced. it cannot because DOT is selling you a service to make their job easier (which is increasing the capacity of the roadway - say toll plaza for this matter) if tags are used as an enforcement tool, nobody would use them, right? so as a rule of thumb, agencies do not make any agreements with law enforcement to create such traps for their customers. same story for cameras. they never record them, or when they do, it is for analysis purposes, not for law enforcement. unless the DOT is subpoena'd by a court to relase the tapes or records, in case of fatality let's say - but, even in that case it is highly unlikely that they will release the info, because DOT are one of the very first agencies to bu sued ( say for the adverse roadway design - geometry, missing signs, bad striping, etc..) so they would not shoot themselves in the food by releasing the tape.
another note: well before we moved into toll tags era, the time it takes from one toll plaza to your destination plaza was being measured anyways. do you remember entry date and time on the entry ticket and date and time on the exit ticket (which we called receipt) did you get any tix back then? no! right? well that is it!
also: there area some applications of installing additional tag readers on arterials and freeways, just to measure the travel time on roadways sections, so that you can generate real time congestion maps. this is being done where there is a substantial market penetration with tags, so that you will have a good percentage of tag holders on no-toll roads. say 10 to 30 %. in this application, one'd worry if he is being tracked. the answer is no. not the customer, but the tag is being tracked from one reader to another. tag is has the vehicle information with it. right? right! but the first time the tag is read, all the information is erased and the tag is assigned an random anonymous number.
shortly, dot's do not have any business to track you down or to measure your speed for law enforcement. and they do not share any common interest with law enforcement agencies.
well, drive safe and don't worry about your toll tags.
by the way, did you know that your cell phone can be tracked ? i would worry about that than speeding tix. in a year or two it will be current practice : wireless location services. sounds innocent, but it is not.
cheers...
posted by 141.158.247...
, Sat, 19 Oct 2002 11:41:17
, Sat, 19 Oct 2002 12:45:00
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