Posted on 09/25/2007 10:59:39 AM PDT by pabianice
BOSTON --Toll booths in Massachusetts -- and across the nation -- could be heading the way of manual typewriters and vinyl records.
Instead of fumbling for change or navigating through special lanes in transponder-equipped cars, drivers may soon have to do little more than cruise on and off highways passing under a metal beam spanning the entire width of the road.
At the end of the month they'd receive a bill, much like any other utility bill. Except this bill would log each time they entered or exited a highway system, how far they traveled and how much they owed.
The idea is called "open road tolling" and it's a key recommendation of a new report on ways Massachusetts can close a multi-billion gap in transportation funding over the next two decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
What happens if I bring my car or bike into Mass ?
If I get a bill from Massachussetts, NY, New Jersey or California, blood will be spilled.
And if the govt overcharges you by, say, 10%, you'll never know.
Privacy invasion for generating tax revenues: good. Privacy invasions for tracking terrorists: bad.
May I please surrender more privacy so that you can tax me even more?
Nope.
I have resisted the convenience of automatic toll for the drive to work.
The last thing I want is a monthly summery of my driving patterns and a list of speeding tickets for every time I cover more distance than I should within a specified period of time.
If I get a bill from Massatwochitts for visiting my family, I’m sending it back unpaid with a nice big “F.O.” on it.
Wait till they start sending you tickets after calculating that you couldnt have gone from A to B in a certain time without violating the speed limit.
I am already paying for the use of the roads in my gasoline taxes and in the extra weight fees I pay for my larger truck and horse trailer.
This is tax upon a tax.
The tracking of every driver is downright sinister, IMO.
The proposal unveiled in Massachusetts envisions a 5 cent per mile fee for all highways. Silveira says that amounts to an average of about $200 a year.
So, people only drive an average of 4000 miles a year on highways? My BS meter is pegged. For me that would be the equivalent of an extra $1.50/gallon gas tax.
It may have changed but at D/FW airport they charged you a fee if you entered and exited the airport in less than a certain time period - something like 5 minutes. They figured longer than that you were picking up / dropping off a passenger. Less than that and you were communting through the airport.
First just “toll roads”. Then entry into downtown Boston. Then all roads in the socialist state of Mass.
After a while, raise the rates. No one will protest. Then use this as a way of “fighting global warming”.
Those toll booth jobs, which are surprisingly highly paid, are among the rewards for low level political operatives, their children, and relatives.
This is the patronage you see. For every toll collector there are supervisors, clerks, facilities people, Then there's a layer or three of middle management, and over all of them the Lords of the TurnPike Authority, with huge salaries and expense accounts and their own staffs!
And I believe they have a union. Automate tolls? You better read Howie Carr before you believe that one. Even scarier, is that they could automate AND leave the people in place to collect for doing nothing, instead of very little.
“...fee for all highways”
So here goes the congestion back on the state highways as people avoid the interstates.
The working man/woman doesn’t have a chance
I was talking to a women from Austria in one of my college classes. That is exactly how she described it was done in Austria. In that case she used the example of a tunnel where camera surveillance was used at the entry and exit of the tunnel. They get a snapshot of your license plate. If you come out of the tunnel to soon you get a letter/ticket from the police.
“The tracking of every driver is downright sinister, IMO.”
No opinion needed, it’s bold faced sinister, indeed!
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