Confusion exacts hefty toll

Marie Lai is pretty sure it wasn't she who breezed through toll plaza 50 without paying Dec.

[Michael Shea]

This is a classic example of George Orwell's "1984."

Who is there to help those who do not have the Problem Solver's resources behind them.
Note: I admire the efforts and effectiveness of "Problem Solvers," but the people violated by the 'system' far outnumber the resources of the "Problem Solvers."

A lot of innocent people are going to be penalized because the system has an 'infallible' method for capitalizing off of 'violators.'

[Matt]

guilty until proven innocent.

[RegularGuy]

Just wait until the 'speeding cameras' start appearing.

The Tribune won't have enough 'Problem Solvers' to handle the workload.

[Charles]

There are more than 69 specialty plates in Illinois.

[Beentheretwo]

This smacks of fraud by the NY Thruway. All in tune with the propensity of government to lie and cheat. The tide of unethical and criminal activity by government at all levels seems to be rising higher and higher.

[jrptoo]

They should get rid of these specialty plates. Illinois has 69 types, other states have a similar number. To make the math easy, let's figure each state has 40-50 types, plus Canadian, Mexican and Tribal plates and their own varieties. I think it is safe to say there are over 2500 different plate types traveling the roads of the US.

Then throw in license plate frames that obscure parts of the plates, adding to the confusion and obfuscation.

As I drive the roads I often find it hard to determine what state a plate is from. It would seem plates would get messed up all the time, not only for toll roads, but speeding and red light cameras, as well as witnesses grabbing plates on hit and runs, crimes, etc.

[ccc]

jrptoo is correct - do away with the license plate frames - they serve no purpose whatsoever and tend to obscure the state name, or some of the letters, or the expiration dates.

As for the different plate types, anybody who wants to put forth any sort of effort can tell that 1257 EV (environmental) is different that 1267 SS (Route 66) and different than KSG 1267 (regular). Just people don't want to put forth any effort

[ccc]

note - I just made those plate numbers up - hope I didn't actually choose someone's real plate numbers.

[IPASS]

Why not implant cranial-chips that can be read by scanners in all transactions?
Yup, just make us cyborgs and be done with it.

[Bee]

How about just making license plate numbers unique?

[Stan]

This is so similar to the news story a couple of weeks ago when Minnesota residents who don't drive in Illinois were receiving violation notices from the Illinois Toll Highway Authority. These agencies have too much power with their draconian enforcement. I say, let's just eliminate all tollways (and toll bridges). The infrastructure cost to support a toll system is just wasted money.

[Just an American]

The upside, at least it is not just Illinois trying to rip people off!

[reality]

jrptoo wrote:

They should get rid of these specialty plates. Illinois has 69 types, other states have a similar number. To make the math easy, let's figure each state has 40-50 types, plus Canadian, Mexican and Tribal plates and their own varieties. I think it is safe to say there are over 2500 different plate types traveling the roads of the US.
Then throw in license plate frames that obscure parts of the plates, adding to the confusion and obfuscation.
As I drive the roads I often find it hard to determine what state a plate is from. It would seem plates would get messed up all the time, not only for toll roads, but speeding and red light cameras, as well as witnesses grabbing plates on hit and runs, crimes, etc.

YES! You've hit on the root cause!

Do away with specialty plates. They defeat the original purpose (identification) of license plates.

[DontGoInAlone]

I'm not condoning any of these mistakes as they happen way too often for the number of actual people who have their hand in clearing these mistakes.

However, I will allow them a very marginal error rate for sitting in front of a monitor to scan photos all day long for the errors - you'd be cross eyed too.

This is not the only area where these mistakes occur. The duplication of plate numbers causes many errors in auto claims too. How many of you have gotten that letter???

[Roy]

And these are the same government people we'll be entrusting our future health care decisions to, in matters of life and death? Yippee.

[Linda]

My friend has had this problem but with the State of Texas. Seems her plates were also on a semi truck. She had to fight numerous violations over and over. Texas could not get it clear that they had photos of a semi tractor trailer and my friend's vehicle was a passenger van. With the fear of continued violations and seeing no other option, she had the vehicle plates changed. The State of Illinois did not see this as their problem and she had to pay all the fees to have the plates changed (they should have taken the circumstances into account and not charged her the multiple fees). I can only hope that she didn't get yet another set of numbers used multiple times...

[sunnyberg]

Another example of mail fraud and extortion by people who should know better. One hundred thousand dollar fines per notifcation would slow these munny grabers down.

[Business Idea]

Hmmm who wants to invest in a company that will specialize in these types of cases? We can hire the problem solver full time and charge 25% of the fee for these bogus tickets - we could make millions- because its not like your going to be able to fight the tollway authority even when your innocent without professional help

[Good Luck]

My neighbor works for one of these automated violation billing companies.....my neighbor has also been convicted of identity theft.......nice!

[Illinoisian]

Sounds just like the Chicago "phantom" tickets they flood out to the down staters.