Florida turnpike and Sunpass - LAC

[Steve Sears]

Zsolt,
Um...407 ETR in Toronto area?
They don't have toll booths but use (problematic) transponders and license
plate photos to send bills out.
WRT Audi Content - I used to just put the transponder (registered with my
office) on the dash, but kept getting bills (at home) from the odd time when
the signal couldn't get picked up - the hassle of dealing with the bean
counters at the 407 finally forced me to stick the friggin' thing up by my
rv mirror (on my new Sekurit windshield) - no lost signals yet.
BTW - "hiccups" in the system:
- Towtrucks get charged for 2 full-length trips when their plate is scanned
entering the highway (the CAA drivers love this)
- Double bills have been sent to car club members who have trailered their
cars through - one for the tow vehicle, one for the scanned license plate on
the car on the trailer - ouch.
- if the system picks up only 1 work transponder signal (entry or exit), it
then charges the work transponder account for 1 exit before (exit signal) or
1 exit after (entry signal), and then does the vice versa for the private
license account (note: not the transponder account) ~$0.36 drive if you are
commuting to Toronto every day
- foreign plates (ie - US state) might not get billed as the ETR is a
private company and they may not have reciprocity with the US
- if you don't pay the tolls in your account to the ETR (private company),
then you cannot renew your license plate - huh....the government is the bill
collector for a private company?  wow....maybe they would collect some of
our overdue accounts for us too.
The highway is also patrolled by the local police forces.  There are always
people trying to outfox the cameras - everything from covering the licence
plate with dirt to doing the ol' James Bond trick - flipping the plate with
a string at the gate (one doorknob even had his kid in the back of his van
reach out and cover the plate as they passed throught the gate).  If you get
caught doing this is a BIG $$$$ fine.....funny, the gov't collects on that
too.....
In the blackout last August, apparently the system was down for only a
matter of minutes - too bad I couldn't have hooked my freezer up to their
backup grid.....
Cheers!
Steve Sears
1987 Audi 5kTQ
1980 Audi 5k
1962 and '64 Auto Union DKW Junior deLuxes
(SPAM Blocker NOTE: Remove SHOES to reply)
----- Original Message ----- 
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 09:19:34 -0700
From: Zsolt <zsolt1 at telusplanet.net>
Subject: RE: Florida turnpike and Sunpass - LAC
To: "Livolsi, Stephane" <Stephane.Livolsi at investorsgroup.com>, "Audi
Quattro List" <quattro at audifans.com>
Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040211091555.01b86e48 at pop.telus.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Hey Stephane, you may not have a toll booth up north where you live, but
the one on the Coke (the Coquahalla freeway just a bit south from you) is
the only one that I know of in Canada.

Are there any other ones? The bridge to PEI maybe?

Zsolt

At 09:01 AM 2/11/2004, Livolsi, Stephane wrote:
>Just out of curiosity, for those of us living in less 'civilized' parts
>of the world...
>
>What happens if you don't stop to pay the tolls?  Do they have a fleet
>of high powered cop cars ready to go after toll runners?
>Helicopters?M-16's? Rocket launchers?
>
>
>Stephane (in Northern BC without any steenking toll booths (yet!))