JAUNTY SELL “No matter how tight you ball them up”

Most toll agencies write pamphlets and flyers that are very precise and proper and dignified... and dull. By contrast the TCA toll agency in southern Cal is using jaunty prose to introduce toll concepts to their freeway ignorami. With the opening of the Eastern pike imminent it has a new primer on tollroad “lingo” with stuff like this:

• “ACMs: Automated Coin Machines located at all toll booths won’t accept bills, no matter how hard you throw them or how small you ball them up. Coins only please.

• “FasTrak - This is a club for Orange County’s fastest commuters. No secret handshake required. Just prepay your tolls, get a transponder and speed through special FasTrak lanes. Your toll is automatically debited.

• “Mainline Toll/Ramp Plaza - Sorry, this means no free rides. Most motorists will pass through a mainline toll plaza in traffic lanes...But in a few spots where motorists can exit just before a toll plaza or enter the road just after one, a ramp toll booth is planted on the on- or off-ramp to collect a toll.

• “Toll attendant - This helpful person will collect your toll and make change at mainline toll plazas only. Only ACMs (see above) collect tolls at ramp toll booths.

• “Transponder - A plastic gizmo that sticks to your windshield and communciates with an overhead antenna, it identifies your FasTrak account and allows your pre-paid toll to be debited.

• “Violation - This no-no means you are not paying your toll correctly. Maybe you threw the wrong amount of change into the ACM or flew through the FasTrak lane without a transponder or a valid FasTrak account. Avoid hefty fines by promptly paying that violation notice you’ll receive in the mail.

• “Last but not least is a word Orange County commuters rarely get to use but tollway users spout all the time: EARLY. Used in a sentence: I got home EARLY today because I used took the Eastern Toll Road.”

Guys, teeny weeny picky point — we in the east who’ve been doing this tolling a long time call those ACMs “Automatic” coin machines. Or are you determined to have your own separate language over there on the earthquake side of the country? We know you already have ‘expressways’ out there with traffic signals instead of bridges. [Contact: Michele Miller TCA 714 513 3444 www.tcagencies.com]