Sunday, May 22, 2022

there seems to be a lot of news recently, about fake license plates, and it puzzled me because there isn't much reason to go through the trouble where I live. BUT, in New York and other places with cameras monitor toll booths? People dodge 10s of thousands of dollars of fees with a fake plate



21-year-old Marcos Parker was charged with misdemeanor Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument after he was stopped for speeding, and the cop realized this fake plate was a vinyl transfer on the metal.

It was shortly after noon Friday the 13th. 


New York now plans to mandate license plate replacement starting next year at a cost of $25 for the new plate and $20 more if a motorist wants to keep their same number,

https://wnbf.com/broome-county-clerk-weighs-in-on-license-plate-debate/


however, some of the New York license plates made (by prison in Auburn) over the past decade or so are falling apart/delaminating. 
Now that EZ pass is abandoning those old sensors and just reading your plate, everyone must have a legible number on their car
A replacement is free, but takes the usual 4 to 6 weeks  

https://wpdh.com/peeling-license-plate-get-a-free-replacement-with-a-catch/
https://dmv.ny.gov/registration/peeling-license-plates

 but over in Wyoming, the news reports there is not enough aluminum to make new plates:

"Due to a nationwide aluminum shortage, WYDOT has had to temporarily suspend all prestige plate and novelty plate orders," the Department of Transportation wrote via a social media post. "Standard plates remain available through your local county treasurer's office."


How there is no shortage to make regular plates, which contain exactly the same amount of aluminum, I don't know.

I'm not aware of why some New England states have been historically toll road happy, because I've lived in several other states in the USA that don't have them. 

So, how is it possible that California for example, or Texas, have 10s of thousands of public roads, and few if any toll roads, but, New Jersey and New York are "turnpike" and "tollroad" prone?

Well, I guess it must be pretty expensive to make tunnels to and from Manhattan, but, haven't those now been in place for about 70 or 80 years? Haven't the tolls and fees paid for them yet?

Here in San Diego there was a govt scam from state Department of Transportation officials and Caltrans to keep people paying the toll on the Coronado Bridge, from San Diego to the island in the bay, until finally someone caught on that the damn thing had been paid for, and the govt was simply going to keep taking in the thousands of dollars a day until they were nailed in court for fraud. The matter had to be brought before a judge, because the govt was too happy to get millions of dollars for their govt spending budgets, without having to prove a reason, or authorized use, for the money. Hint, potholes did not get fixed

The Coronado Bridge’s $50-million construction bill was paid off 17 years ahead of schedule because the toll was too high, AND the amount of traffic had been underestimated. More than $8 million was collected in tolls each year from the 50,000 cars that cross the bridge daily.

The Coronado Bridge was a up front deal that government gave its word to the voters if they voted for the bonds to build the Coronado Bridge, the toll would stop the day the bonds were paid off. It took 15 years after the bonds were paid off to get the toll to stop.

When the bridge opened in 1969, the toll was 60 cents each way. Then for years, it became $1for inbound traffic only, and carpoolers were free. Then in 2002, all fares were dropped, 16 years after the bridge bond was paid off in 1986

The Golden Gate Bridge is completely different, because there was no such deal in place there. 


Turnpikes, on the other hand, used their "near monopoly position" to boost rates on drivers so much that revenue increased 4.3 percent even though traffic plunged 6.4 percent. The New Jersey Turnpike, for example, raised driving costs by fifty percent.


interesting but grim, sidenote:
The Coronado Bridge is frequently used as a suicide bridge; as of July 2017, at least 407 suicide deaths by bridge jumpers have occurred on the Coronado, trailing only the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco as the bridge most-often used for suicide in the United States.
 Solar-powered phones were once installed on the Skyway to offer direct help for those contemplating suicide, but have since been removed. Signs have been placed on the bridge urging potential suicides to call a hotline. However, call boxes are not provided.

 In 1972, three years after the bridge was opened to traffic, the first "suicide" was recorded. It was subsequently reclassified as a murder after an investigation determined that Jewell P. Hutchings, 52, of Cerritos had been forced to jump at gunpoint. Her husband, James Albert Hutchings, was subsequently charged with murder and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

4 comments:

  1. "....after he was stopped for speeding, and the cop realized this fake plate was a vinyl transfer on the metal."

    When you do something illegal, the golden rule is to only do ONE illegal thing at a time. Fortunately most culprits are too dumb to follow that rule.

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  2. I know that here in NH we have a bunch of toll booths on major highways (though being NH, that's not a lot of roads). Unlike the surrounding states, we have no taxes (no income or sales tax, low gas, tobacco, alcohol taxes) so it is more of a nuisance than something to complain about.

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  3. The standard Wyoming license plates may have been made in large quantities before the Aluminum shortage. Or they might use a different grade of aluminum for the vanity plates because they are probably made on different presses to allow them to be made individually.

    In Ohio, I-80 and I-90 run together as the Ohio Turnpike and then go into Indiana and Illinois as toll roads to the West. If we drive a long distance, like to Chicago or Wisconsin, it is worth the money to use the toll roads to avoid all the small towns. If I'm just driving to Toledo or Cleveland, which are about an hour drive, I'll take another route, because the turnpike doesn't save much time for me. The Ohio Turnpike has its own maintenance and plowing equipment, so the road is in better condition and the snow is cleared better than the surrounding state and interstate roads.

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    Replies
    1. dang... it's good to have you as a friend and commenter who can weigh in with personal experience on this, and so many other issues! Thanks!

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