Big Brother- Tag on your TC?
"In the last few years traffic systems have been empowered with automated license-plate readers and various government entities have been putting cameras up everywhere, from automated and semi-automat...
Forum Discussion
Kayteg1 wrote:gbopp wrote:
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Apparently some of us do enjoy sitting in traffic. :)
Good point.
Been using transporters for well over 10 years and living in San Francisco area, I purchased Chicago transporter as visiting it every 2-3 years it was making sense to me.
Chicago has tool booth every few miles and leaving the city you had to stop several times paying 50 cents there and 75 cents there.
California stop giving discounts for transporter holders years ago, but you can use it for express lanes driving.
They also use transporters for measuring traffic, what you can see on google.
My camper has licence plate holder under the big bumper, while I carry generator up front.
If the cameras can't see them - fine with me.
The transponders to my knowledge are not used for measuring traffic as seen by Google Maps. I believe there would be some legality issues for this type of information to flow between government to private sources. The transponders are also only read at certain locations where they are read by the system and otherwise remain as a passive device.
Where the traffic information does come from is by by cell phone users that are using Google Maps to navigate and thus constantly reporting back to Google what the current speed of the phone is. Aggregation of all of these devices gives Google enough information to know where there are slowdowns and can report on it.
In regards to the tolls thing, I wouldn't lose much sleep over it. The government entity in charge of the toll already did a cost benefit analysis to determine that it was cheaper to allow outliers to skate through without paying versus manning toll booths 24 hours per day. The "FastTrac" devices used in the SF Bay Area aren't even necessary. My reader is probably close to 15 years old and has parts rattling around inside. It doesn't even beep (and hasn't for years) when I go through the booth. The system will use a license plate reader to read my plates and bill my account just like the Golden Gate does it.
Side note... The system is also pretty lenient with first time enforcement. I went through in my truck pulling a trailer that had not been registered to the system. I got a notice stating that I could add the trailer to my account to pay the toll bill. Added it and that was it, no fines or penalty fees.
