Violation lights being installed in toll lanes in Orange Co to help catch unplated vehicles
Posted Thu, 2007-11-08 18:02
The Toll Roads of Orange County California are installing flashing indicator lights to help watching police see violators. 52 toll lanes will get the lights. They have been tested at the Catalina View toll plaza on the 73 San Joaquin Hills Toll Road. Their
operation there helped state police catch drivers without a license plate who can't be caught with cameras.
Transportation Corridors Agencies which operate the county Toll Roads - the Foothill/Eastern and San Joaquin Hills -Â say they have been losing $5m a year due to violators without license plates.
A flashing light is used at a number of toll facilities around the US, and is said to have some deterrent effect as well as helping police who may be hovering in a cruiser nearby.
Maryland has the most potent such device - a kind of foghorn that some rude Baltimoreans call The Fart.
We got an earful of The Fart once after we'd gone through an E-ZPass-only toll lane at the Ft McHenry Tunnel toll plaza with a bad E-ZPass transponder from the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It was enough to get us to end v-tolls and call customer service for a new transponder.
Virginia by contrast had The Great Flash. On the Dulles Toll Road they deterred violators for years in the express toll lanes at the Tysons Corner plaza with a brilliant flash plus threatening looking camera housings. Eventually Virginia DOT fessed up to the Washington Post that the camera housings were empty, and unless they had a cop in crusier nearby motorists could incur The Great Flash with impunity. With that in the newspaper it was time then to install cameras, which recently came into service.
JUST A THOUGHT: Maybe Maryland's violator foghorn could usefully be supplemented by a device which dispensed a bad odor downstream in the tunnel after the appropriate lag.
TOLLROADSnews 2007-11-08
operation there helped state police catch drivers without a license plate who can't be caught with cameras.Transportation Corridors Agencies which operate the county Toll Roads - the Foothill/Eastern and San Joaquin Hills -Â say they have been losing $5m a year due to violators without license plates.
A flashing light is used at a number of toll facilities around the US, and is said to have some deterrent effect as well as helping police who may be hovering in a cruiser nearby.
Maryland has the most potent such device - a kind of foghorn that some rude Baltimoreans call The Fart.
We got an earful of The Fart once after we'd gone through an E-ZPass-only toll lane at the Ft McHenry Tunnel toll plaza with a bad E-ZPass transponder from the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It was enough to get us to end v-tolls and call customer service for a new transponder.
Virginia by contrast had The Great Flash. On the Dulles Toll Road they deterred violators for years in the express toll lanes at the Tysons Corner plaza with a brilliant flash plus threatening looking camera housings. Eventually Virginia DOT fessed up to the Washington Post that the camera housings were empty, and unless they had a cop in crusier nearby motorists could incur The Great Flash with impunity. With that in the newspaper it was time then to install cameras, which recently came into service.
JUST A THOUGHT: Maybe Maryland's violator foghorn could usefully be supplemented by a device which dispensed a bad odor downstream in the tunnel after the appropriate lag.
TOLLROADSnews 2007-11-08