Spambots are getting more stupid

[Jester]

You're supposed to buy a transponder and keep it in your vehicle to use that lane. The money must come out of your bank account.

I suppose it could come out of your bank account. Down here in Floriduh, they do it a bit differently with their Sun Pass. First, there are two style units you can buy (or there were when I bought mine a few years ago; things may have changed). The regular unit which is about the size of a radar detector or large smart phone, which can be used in any vehicle you want, be it yours or a rental or a frind's (though the account is still yours), and thus can be transferred from your old vehicle to a new purchase. The other unit is a credit card sized sticker you stick to your windshield (I have mine up in front of the center rear view mirror), and which is not transferable; whatever vehicle you asking it to, that's the only one it works for. If you sell the vehicle, you need to cancel that account.

And the account is similar to a rechargeable credit card or phone card; you can add money as you see fit. You can set it up to add a certain amount each month automatically, but as I live in the Keys and the Sun Pass roads are only on the mainland, this makes no sense for me to do. So whenever I drive up north, I check my balance and add some money on to it as needed, depending on where in Floriduh I'm heading. And whenever the Jestermobile passes a Sun Pass toll station, it automatically deducts the appropriate amount from my Sun Pass account. If the account drops below zero or someone in a car without a Sun Pass drives through such a toll station, the license plate camera is triggered, and they are billed via the aforementioned "Pay by Plate" method. In the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas, there are no longer any actual cash toll booths. I have no idea if the northern stretch of the Florida Turnpike has likewise been converted to no cash, or if they still operate on the "grab a ticket at one point and pay at your exit point" system, as I've not been on that portion of the Turnpike since before they converted the southern toll roads to full auto.

[sms001]

I'm in FIBland maybe once a year, so I just hand cash to the attendant. It makes no sense for me to get the transponder.

We already had one when we moved up here, so we kept it and keep a few bucks in it; makes visiting the M-i-L a little quicker, but you're right, I don't think we'd get one new at this point.

jester - the IPass works like your transponder one - I'd never heard of the decal type; that's interesting. I think you have to go online and punch in some license numbers if you want to switch them between vehicles though. Probably keeps theft of them down?

[klhanson]

You're supposed to keep a transponder yes.. but i know people that have just blown through there and not had one.. i'm sure a lot of people actually do.. Though they do take a picture of your license plate and catch you at it

[wolfie]

U.S. Customs uses the decal-type. For cross-border commercial trucks, there's a fee for entering the U.S., which can be paid at the border on a per-trip basis (around $10), or you can get the transponder and pay on a per-year basis (I believe it's around $300). Needless to say, frequent crossers have the transponders.

[mjr]

To piggyback off of what Jester said, in the Dallas, TX area, they now have variable pricing on the toll roads. It's actually more expensive the more people drive on them at once. Sometimes it's as high as $2.50 per booth during rush hour.

And there was recently an article in one of the Dallas papers about some guy who had several thousand in "tolls" that he owed, but most of it was that for each "infraction" they charged him $25. That pesky "administration fee" that Jester talked about.

So each toll was then something like $26.50. Times however many.

The interesting thing is, you don't have to have a toll tag to drive on the toll roads in Dallas. They just send you an invoice after a certain amount of time, I think.