Drivers are being swamped in unfair toll violations: suit
Now this is scary and a real sign of how the looters are just destroying everything and anything. To start with, taxes should be paying the costs of building roads and bridges (69.6 cents per gallon) tolls were always for private ventures such as bridges and ferrys government did not provide. Now they toll 8.50 each way for a bridge and tunnel, and because tolling is sso inefficient, they use a transponder on the car and it doesnt work, so they gouge you 100.00 for every 8.50 you "don't" pay because they can't make it work. Just scrap that whole thing and start over, it is completely unaffordable for anyone and is just feeding some giant socialist monster. Just to illustrate how hard it is to find real data that number came from a site llisting the "total" tax per gallon and here is a supposed breakdown, that would make an AR adherent cry : "Gasoline and Diesel Tax rates also include a 8-8.75 cpg state sales tax + 4% local sale tax rate (most areas), "Other Tax" include a 0.05 cpg Petroleum Test Fee (gas only)and a 0.30 cpg spill fee, State excise tax is 8 cpg on gasoline and diesel, Petroleum Business Tax 17.8 cpg gas only and 16.05 cpg diesel ((article 13A)) "
Because here in FL, they take a picture of your license plate. And if the transponder did not go off, but the car is registered to a transponder (via the Plate), they just ding it for you.
In fact, now they have Toll by plate, where they don't even bother pinging the transponder in a bunch of places...
BUT... I got a bill in the mail when I changed cars. It turns out they had MISREAD the plate. the picture they sent me was NOT my car. LMAO.
The removed the charges. Apologizes.
I watched my bill for about 3 months after that, but it seemed fine.
I have NO ISSUE with Tolls, or Port Fees. But I have a huge issue with Corruption that causes them to use the fees for things other than the roads!
Highway taxes and fees typically go into the general fund where much of it is used for other costs, such as subways and rail and land acquisition and construction costs for bike paths and trails.
But the lack of competition in the system, and the corruption that follows...
Basically, as the government becomes 90% of the employment they will have to tax us out of existence.
I think someone else mentioned that the MPG is way up, and now they get less $$$. So much so, that in CA they are asking PRIUS drivers to pay by the mile. And are considering an additional tax.
I know Disney maintains their own roads quite well... I would be curious to see what they pay per mile! Something tells me it is LESS than my county pays...
But the scenario doesn't surprise me.
Even when these systems work, the worst problem is the privacy violation by constant government tracking required for the "technology" of open-ended "revenue enhancement". There is a bill in Massachusetts that would impose new tolls on all kinds of highways where there are no tolls now. Another one would establish a pilot program for "counting [and] reporting the number of miles traveled by particular vehicles". It would would use "on-board vehicle-mileage-counting equipment added to their vehicles, administered in a manner the department of transportation deems appropriate". The "pilot program" would "analyze and evaluate the ability of different technologies and methods to ... ensure drivers’ privacy; and vary pricing based on the time of driving, type of road, proximity to transit, vehicle fuel efficiency, participation in car-sharing or pooling or income of the driver". http://cltg.org/cltg/clt2018/docs/H18...
They claim this tracking isn't a violation of privacy because the bill says so. Instead of laws that protect the rights of the individual, their notion of rights is whatever is left after they do whatever they can get away with under constantly expanding authority with a progression of never-ending new laws that pronounce that they do not violate rights, which is then employed in assurances that propagandize with Orwellian double speak.