The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

The Turnpike Authority just announced it is using Automatic License Plate Recognition cameras to bill people who drive thru toll gates without throwing money in the basket or having a PikePass read.

...which is funny, because they've already been doing that for a few years now.

"The all-electronic toll booth was created for the safety of drivers" says the press handout local media cut-and-pasted to their stories.

I still have the muddy, Xeroxed photo of my license tag they sent after they couldnt read my PikePass, telling me I need to be a PikePass customer or pay tolls just like the unwashed masses (out of state drivers) do.

So yes, the OTA has been logging the license plates of turnpike users for some time, but only recently figured out how to automate the collection process?



"The toll rate between the Pikepass customer and an invoiced plate pay customer is going to be substantially different," Oklahoma Turnpike Authority Director of Communications Jack Damrill said.

The new rates will be released in December, but Damrill says the toll will likely be double for those without a Pikepass.

"All-electronic tolling is not easy," Damrill said. "Obviously with tracking down the registered owner of that car, sometimes they don't re-register that car, it is in the preregistered person's name."

If you use the electronic toll you will receive a bill in the mail a few days later. The bottom of the bill will show you how much you could save using a Pikepass.

"Tracking down an invoice customer is more expensive, with this we already have their account information on file, it is kept secret of course and it is cheaper for them," Damrill said.



PikePass customers get mailed a bill, too, just on a regular cycle.  This cant be done with license-plate-scanner tolls?

There was an announcement in the last few days the new interchange around Elm in Jenks will use tag recognition for toll collection.

2 things to pikepass
1)  Required to have a balance on the account of at least $10.  There are workarounds available, but 90% of the time you need a balance

2) By enrolling, you save like 10cents. so trying to incentivize folks to just blindly give folks money.

That being said, since K*Tags work at OK toll boths now, I've just used that.  They automatically pull what I owe from the CC every month, assuming I owe more than $10, and I still get the discount.

Do we really need turnpikes?

Some friends that go to Texas a lot get periodic turnpike bills but not a bill for each transaction.  I would hope we can be at least as smart as Texas.  Oh well.


This is STUPID.


Especially if you send a bill for each trip through a toll booth.  Wise up OTA.

Whether you like cars and roads or not, we need roads.  I'll agree that we don't need super highways through the middle of a downtown.  A bypass around town is acceptable.  A bypass around the bunch of towns along 75/69 going to Texas would be a big improvement.  A  toll  road there would probably be well supported.  It is unlikely that any significant new roads will be funded without being toll roads.

But why do we need tolls to fund this? How misallocated are our tax dollars? Same question I have with education. It just doesn't add up. Frustrating.

I expect that, at least in Oklahoma, the funds that should be allocated to roads are spent elsewhere.  I don't like toll roads but it is a convenient way to build roads.  I grew up in PA with the PA Turnpike.  There were also some toll roads in NJ from the Philadelphia area to the NJ Seashore around Atlantic City and Cape May.  There was also the NJ Turnpike if you wanted to go to NY.

Education:  I believe that if 779 passes that all that money raised by the increased sales tax will be spent on education.  I also believe that money already being spent on education will be re-allocated elsewhere.  We have had at least 2 things that were supposed to fix education spending forever.  1017 (I think that was the bill/law number) was the first I remember (our family moved here in 1971).   The lottery was the second.

Discussion then diverted entirely to teacher pay, which is fine... I split that thread off.

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21410.0

- Moderator

I just read the part you addressed to me and its nonsense. Literally doesn't make any sense from a business standpoint. You seem to think that the market is somehow polluted by union representation when in reality, the lack of unions artificially enhances the corporate power to administer a market. Markets work best when they are balanced, not skewed to one side or the other. But to be fair, you repeated one point I made as though it was yours, "he only maintains that job if he produces", and left out the part that negates your assumption. The demand for specific degrees overcomes the market because of economic constraints. There is only so much a company feels it wants to pay for a hard to find degree. Most companies know that number and will only pay a little more or a little less to get that candidate. In effect they collude. The market for that degree would normally boost the asking price but since degreed candidates are rarely unionized, the companies work together to keep pay scales in line. So, the candidate has little incentive to move around other than work environment. Artificial market pricing. The real loser is the industry that does these shenanigans, and they don't all do it. Then it hurts the larger economy as well. What incentive is there for investing in a degree when the average engineer gets paid the same as the idiot engineer and there is no way to be compensated for the real demand in the marketplace? None. So you get Dilbert style engineering companies. Same with teachers. Only with teachers the boss is government and they repress the market because they represent the skinflint red state voters.

I saw it in the oil company I worked for, I saw it in advertising and I see it now in education and healthcare. Teachers are degreed candidates that earned the right to unionize but their unions are weak, political and too close to their opponents. However, they provide other protections and benefits besides compensation negotiation. Freeing the teachers from unions will simply give them no leverage at all.

I think the replies are still following the original header.

Maybe he was typing that one when the Mod split it. Seems like other replies are posting fine.

Ahhh.... it looked like I was censored, but my turnpike comment just didn't get here at the split....

With the Automatic License Plate Reader setup, it looks like you should have a PikePass account, but not necessarily a PikePas transponder glued to your windshield.

http://www.platepay.com/

Brings a thought into my head... car was towed by storey a few weeks ago, they apparently took my car on the Creek turnpike to the shop when I was headed west on the BA Expressway.  Only discovered this when looking at my statement this past month.  Is there any experience here with disputes or clarifications on that stuff through either storey or the turnpike authority?  Does a car on a flatbed have any expectations of toll payment?  Wouldn't that be rolled into the payment made by a the wrecker crew?  Just guessing I'm technically being double-billed for that 70cents, since they likely upcharged me for the turnpike.

70 cents?  Also, you actually read your toll tag bill?  Some things are just not worth the time spent doing...

Really?

I hope you read your bank statement.

Honestly, no.  But I have someone who does it for me.  :)

My point though was that 70 cents is not worth messing with. We have everything set up through auto-pay, and very little is directly charged to our checking.  We route everything through CC's, and those statements we DO look at.  But even then we'd never notice a small charge.

It's kind of like people who look at the details of their phone bills to see if they actually made a specific call.  I just don't have time for it.

Its a tip-of-the-iceberg argument.  Noticing a small computer error might lead down the trail to a larger issue.

I hope you never have the difficulty my father had terminating a trial subscription to the Wall Street Journal through American Express.

Sure, check to make sure it isn't a recurring charge.  But there is an explanation to the $0.70 charge that makes it a one time thing... and while it probably should be reversed.  But if your time is worth at least $10 an hour, you've got about 4 minutes to tackle that issue before it isn't worth bothering with.

Yep.  I use YouNeedABudget (https://www.youneedabudget.com) to do my budgeting and track my spending.  I also use a K*Tag for the turnpike rather a PikePass, since I like that they only bill my CC when I owe over $10 in a month.  I tracked the KTag account when I was doing more work travel to Wichita.

and yeah, 70cents isn't much.  I had discovered it before Christmas, but had actually just dismissed it.  If it's something as simple as a call, I might do that :)
I very rarely use my pass, and when I do, it is generally the same route.  Really easy to glance and see the outlier.

It's really this.  The new story about license plates for tolls reminded me about a story where someone got an automatic ticket when the wrecker was speeding (https://redditblog.com/2015/11/03/apparently-its-possible-to-have-your-car-towed-and-get-a-speeding-ticket-at-the-same-time/). There was even a picture from the traffic camera to prove that they weren't on the ground.

The argument might make more sense if I was constantly earning money all the time.  There's plenty of the time during the day where I'm wasting time, so I could I swap this for any of those activities and I'm already doing better.  Say this even takes 10 minutes, of which 5 is spent on hold (being an optimist).  Maybe that hold time could be spent chopping vegetables or watching the pasta water boil for dinner.

There's also the theory that if people complain enough about something, they might eventually fix the issue. Optimistic, I know, but again, probably a better use of time than flipping through the same reddit articles again

That's an interesting one.   I ran into this years ago.  Can't remember the publication or circumstances, but it was beyond frustrating.   Periodical subscriptions and similar is one area where I/we will not set up automatic recurring payments.  We generally do one year at a time, and have to manually renew.  I've dropped a few inadvertently over the years, but that's better than keeping something I don't want.

And yes, in general to this topic, I get "nickeled and dimed" (sp?) all the time on stuff like this because (to me) it's not worth the time to protest the charges.  To each his own.  I did get a chuckle out of Cannon Fodder's "chopping vegetables or watching the pasta water boil" comment.  Throw in a glass of wine, and I'd let a lot more than .70 slide just to not have to mess with it.

Of course that's true, but free time - even wasted free time, has value too.  My time from 8pm to 10pm where I basically BS with my wife, watch something stupid, read a book, or sit in the hot tub is more valuable than $10 an hour to do something else or I'd go down the street and get an evening shift at a fast food joint.  If I had a guaranteed 70 cents for spending 15 minutes, 10, or even 5 minutes dealing with some overcharge issue... there is no way I'd invest staring at the wall time for it.

If it fixes a recurring issue on your account, or is trying to fix something for the greater good - have at it (likely Pikepass is powerless to "fix it" and Story doesn't give a damn).  Hell, if you view it as justice and need action, great.  But as an economic proposition, it isn't worth the hassle.

That doesn't matter to the fine collectors.
 
 :(

You amuse me, Mister Bond.

(https://cbsmiami.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/license-plate.jpg)

A felony charge does seem a bit disproportionate, though.

Are there multiple degrees of tax evasion?

Sadly, I read the comments to an article about that.  25% were ripping the guy for tax evasion, not paying his fair share, and trying to cheat the system.  25% were angry with the police officer for oppressing a citizen, wasting taxpayer funds, and making a big deal out of nothing.  And 50% applauded the guy for evading taxes, talked about how stupid tolls were, and generally ranted against the government.

I sighed and returned to the land where roads pay for themselves magically and are utilized by foam hooved unicorns, thereby needing no maintenance. 

Income taxes:  unconstitutional (in spite of constitutional amendment directly on point), unfair, socialism, big government!
Sales taxes:  ineffective, encourages the black market, keeps small businesses down!
Corporate taxes:  corporations aren't people, only people really pay taxes so this doesn't really even exist!
Use taxes:  This is crap!
Bad roads:  This government sucks and can't even keep the roads nice!

I’m reading a book about the birth and death of short haul railroads in NE New Mexico around the turn of the last century.  It shows why a private free market approach to transportation is essentially impossible to sustain over the long haul.