Posted on 12/01/2006 6:21:03 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
As TxDOT monitors weather conditions to determine whether to put crews on standby, it has new considerations this winter. De-icing roads in any inclement weather now includes more than 20 miles of new toll roads, much of which is elevated.
"We're interested in seeing how drivers react to icy conditions on these new sets of roads. We're keeping an eye on how driving patterns are in bad weather," Marcus Cooper with TxDOT said.
TxDOT'S Central District office will be checking weather conditions in an 11-county area around Austin.
Speaking of toll roads, people who are driving on sections of the new roadways are being photographed. Most don't even know it.
A TxDOT contractor is taking pictures of your license plate and using that information to build a database of every driver on the road. It's got some people upset.
There are cameras along 45 taking pictures of every car's license plate We can understand photographing violators who aren't paying the tolls, but the roads are still free, and yet every driver is being tracked on camera.
We did some digging and found an employment ad seeking 57 image review clerks being hired by a contractor for TxDOT. It reads, "the position must perform accurate data entry of license plates from images into databases."
We found one of the people who was hired to do this work. He didn't want his identity revealed. He told us his quota was 4,000 license plates entered into the database everyday. It seemed high so he asked his supervisor.
"She said, 'Well no, we're not doing violations right now. We're basically entering in all the data from everybody traveling the new toll roads." Which sort of threw me back because at that point I thought I was going to be handling violations," the image review clerk said.
To get to the bottom of it, we went right to the source and talked to Gabriela Garcia at the Toll Road Authority. She says because the tolls are not being collected yet, the equipment is simply being tested. The photographs will be used to enforce people who blow through the toll booths without paying.
"There could be some of that going on now. I'm not sure how much of that's happening on which roads and how many of the vehicles are actually being photographed. It's not being sold to anybody or anybody else for any other purpose other than toll enforcement purposes only," Garcia said.
Garcia told KXAN in a second interview that any photographs taken and information gathered on people that are not violating the tolls will be deleted, and no records will be kept.
why do they need to photograph the plates - the cars carry EZPASS to pay the toll don't they, they already know who you are.
Correct. The ez-tags are connected directly to a person's credit card or bank account. They know EVERYTHING about the owner of the vehicle.
They haven't starting charging tolls.
While I think this is crap, the new Toll 121 section from Grapevine up into Frisco has no toll booths, just tag readers. The only way they can catch violators would be to photograph everyone, then discard all the tags that match up with a tolltag. IOW, guilty until otherwise proven. At least on the sections that have booths, the camera doesn't trigger until it detects a vehicle without reading a tag. It may come to that with the new highway as well, though you can't use the road without a tag, so no tollbooths or change machines. Right now, they are probably also using it as they say, for building driving profiles. Problem is, as with all surveillance, it can all to easily be abused.
Garcia told KXAN in a second interview that any photographs taken and information gathered on people that are not violating the tolls will be deleted, and no records will be kept.
"The check is in the mail", "I'll pull out, darling", "...no records will be kept".
No, they aren't. Many tags are pay-ahead, and have to be recharged.
If I roll through the EZPASS lane on the Throgs Neck, without an EZPASS, the only way they have to identify me is by photographing my plate. And as you know, they will.
Sounds like a targeted marketing campaign. Send mail to all those who have travelled the roads and haven't ordered their txtag yet. Especially those that have used the roads multiple times.
Yep...thanks...(grim grin)
I understand that. but what I am saying is, a tiny fraction of the drivers pass without the tag (the violators). why database EVERYONE through the photos, when they already know who 99% of them are from the tag read?
OK, so its a test.
why hire 57 clerks to enter 4000 plates a day. how many violators do they expect when they go live? 200,000 a day?
Well, I still see it as two issues. They need to be able to read the plates of every car, but they sure as hell don't need to catalog all those numbers (especially when there can be no non-payers because there is no toll to pay).
Precisely.
I wouldn't accept that as justification of this behavior, but it does seem at least plausible.
The cheaper way to target that marketing is with a . . . wait for it . . . . BILLBOARD.
I had my tags suspended due to a non payment of a fictitious fine some years back here in Maryland. I was driving a red car and the tag picture was on a green truck. It took me a ridiculous amount of arguing to get them to even look at the supposed picture. They 'forgot' the whole thing. This $hit sucks. I know.
That's illegal under state and federal law.
All the more reason to doubt the veracity of this story.
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