I worry about this all the time, since I go through the toll-reading thing twice a day. It just seems impossible that the thing can read the sensor, while you are going through it at expressway speed.
Plus, the other day I went through a regular tollbooth, and the gate wouldn’t open. The person in the booth told me to take the sensor off the dash and hold it up in the middle of the windshield. I did, and the gate went up. If it couldn’t be read that time, while I was at a dead stop, why would I have any confidence that it can read it while it is in motion?
I expect to be in the same spot you are in any time now, Absolute. This thing just seems like a problem waiting to happen.
I know. Lesser versions have happened to me though. I will have to question the circumstances however. Failure to read errors are very common and probably happen thousands of times a day throughout the state. However, the backup is the photo of your license plate that they take as you go through. The best that I can tell is that either software or humans looks at the license plate when there is a read failure and sees if that car has a EZ-Pass transponder assigned to it. If so, it looks like the software just corrects the whole thing and you are golden. That must be it because I have have many failure to read lights myself and have only gotten one ticket.
Is there a chance that you aren’t in the associated car when you had all these read failures? That causes a problem that they can’t reconcile.
The gate I go through now doesn’t have a light. I don’t know what all the different kinds of systems are, but here in Illinois, some of the reguar toll-booth lanes are I-Pass lanes. These have a light, and you have to slow down to go through them. But most of the lanes are free-flowing now…they have one big gate stretching over 4 lanes, and you don’t have to slow down or anything. There is no light, because you would never know who is setting it off, since zillions of cars are going through at 70 MPH. You just have to hope that the sensor is reading them all.
I don’t know what the hell happened. The letter they mailed me included a picture of my license plate. I was in my only car, the one on my EZPass account. I checked the account just now, and it is in good standing.
Deal with it how? Pull over and get out of my car in the middle of the expressway?
I think he means that you should turn your hazard lights on, force yourself into the right hand breakdown lane cutting through whatever lanes you need to, safely park your car, hold your hand up prominately as you walk back through the lanes to make sure that all traffic stops, knock on a toll booth door, explain what happened, and then negotiate an appropriate solution. Do what is requested, stop traffic again so that you can safely cross back to your car and then motor away while carefully merging into congested traffic.
I assume that is it because if it isn’t, I’ve got nothing.
I’ve always seen plenty of space on the right side of the road, after the toll booths, where you can pull over and get back to the office. It can be a challenge if the EZ-Pass lane is the far left, but it’s the same rule if you have no change for an exact change lane.
If your EZ-Pass is the same as in Houston, there are no lights. The only way you know it didn’t get a read and someone screwed up matching the tag is when you get the ticket in the mail.
If there’s not a number to call, check their website for the dispute procedure. Failing that, send them a letter requesting that they double check the tag number in their photo with the tag you have registered in EZ-Pass. Make sure to include you EZ-Pass account number
My roomate got several tickets from FasTrak (California) in the mail. He was probably speeding and the transponder didn’t pick up. A few weeks later, his account was debited and the tickets cleared themselves when they checked his plates.
Our tickets here are only about $20-30 plus the $4 toll.
$500 for one ticket? Is this just a ticket for running a toll? This isn’t for speeding or something like that? At least in NY Metro area back when I lived there, running thru the EZPass lane was just $20 or $30. FWIW, they had a protocol for clearing these things up, you just had to send in you tag number or something and they would only charge you for the toll. I had to commute from Queens to NJ, it happened to me more than once.
I had it on FL. If the thing didn’t work for whatever reason (which was at least once a week), they just charged me anyways, the license was linked to the account, and the account was set on autopay. Whatever could possibly go wrong, would be their fault.
I trusted the system so much, that if I had relatives visiting, renting a car, I would give them my transponder and just run through the tolls without it, knowing that I would just be billed for it. I was never ticketed in 4 years.
That said, my house mate did get once a ticket. All it took him was a call to the same number he called to have his account refilled. 5 minutes, thank you ma’am kinda deal.
Give’em a call to their subscription number, they will route your call.
Likewise, I got one of these (lesser) fines in Delaware and simply had to mail in a copy of my EZPass statement showing it was active… they simply deducted the toll and tossed away the fine.
THere was a problem with my credit card (it had changed number with a new card issue or something), and the tag went from one long “beeeeeeeep” (transaction OK) to “bip bip bip bip bip” (declined - no funds), but the problem occurred the exact same day we moved house - and this detail is important.
My girlfriend was the one driving the car every day, and it turns out that she thought the different sound was due to using a different toll booth at our new address (As if they have regional dialects or something). By the time our mail caught up with the new address, she’d been happily sailing through illegally twice a day for a few weeks.
I freaked, and imagined the worst. But an email fixed it.
In the next couple of weeks, fines associated with traffic violations are going to skyrocket here in Virginia. The General Assembly went that route (instead of higher taxes) to fund road contruction. That may be what Mass. does.