Judge Slams Florida Authorities For Bogus Toll Fines
from the it's-all-about-the-money dept
It's not just with red light cameras that local authorities are squeezing extra money out of drivers, Consumerist points us to the news that a judge in Florida has tossed out thousands of bogus toll citations, slamming both the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority and Florida Turnpike Authority for failing to deal with the fines properly. It appears that some of the fines resulted from malfunctioning toll transponders. The judge noted that this should have been easy for the traffic authorities to correct, but instead they made it a bureaucratic nightmare for those unfairly and incorrectly accused of running tolls. The judge has even gone so far as to bar the two Authorities from issuing any new citations to drivers who have prepaid or credit-card accounts -- to the point that he's instructed the court clerks in both places to refuse to accept any new citations without affidavits swearing that the offenders have no money in their accounts.
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Holy sh*t!
I'm shocked and amazed. Though, said judge(s) should watch their backs, as some black op may make them disappear... in order to preserve the regular haphazard time-wasting-ness of the US legal system.
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Where can we clone him?
Also -- Given how over-taxed our legal system is... wouldn't it be nice to see more level-headed, no-nonsense rulings like this against wasteful bureaucracies?
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Re: Where can we clone him?
We need more sane judges.
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WOOHOO
Just as an FYI, the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA) is an organization that justifies it's own existence. They were created to build a single toll road across Orlando. When that was finished, which means that their high paying jobs were about to be eliminated, they said "Hey, we can build another toll road here". Now that THAT road is nearly finished, they have come up with another toll road that will take around 10 years to build. They are doing nothing other than supporting their own mortgages and urban sprawl. The money they make could be put into public transportation (an extensive rail system would do nicely).
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Re: WOOHOO
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Wow
Imagine if we had more not-taking-this-crap judges like him working across the country?
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Wow...
Good news that such abuses are being put on hold. Kudos to the judge, I just hope that there are more like them out there with the average citizen in mind!
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It's rare!
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Look at the evolution of the txtism...
But don't forget the solution TXTspeak was trying to solve. Now people use it in inappropriate arenas (like here where a complete set of keys and time is available).
TXTspeak is appropriate on a cellphone or IM;
it is not appropriate in a discussion forum, school paper or even spoken language. Saying "LOL" just makes you sound goofy. and it should be lol because you do not have the time to capital .
TXT speak when you have a complete keyboard and can type in complete sentences (like here)
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Re: Look at the evolution of the txtism...
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Obviously, they shouldn't have cited her but rather just deducted the money and sent a notification that her transponder seemed to be malfunctioning, but she deserves at least some of the blame for doing nothing each time the light flashed red after the first few.
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Over the 5 years or so, the Expressway Authority in the Orlando area has converted most the toll plazas so that those who have transponders do not pass through a classic toll booth. Instead, they built an arch over the highway that holds transponder detectors and cameras. Cars pass under the arches at posted highway speeds. Those without transponders are routed off the highway through a toll booth for payment. Newer transponders (the small box attached to the window in your vehicle) will blink a LED and sound a beep as you pass under the arch to indicate as feedback that transponder was recognized. However, the older transponders which were issued before the conversion of the toll plazas do not have this feature. They provide no indication whatsoever that the transponder was recognized. You can pass through many of the new toll plazas for a long time and not know that the transponder is not working (usually because the battery died), until you get some sort of official notification. There are probably 10s, if not 100s, of thousands of the older transponders still in use.
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Illinois system works...
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TxTag BS Scam
I've gotten a Citation from using a toll road here.
What's funny is I've NEVER drove on any Toll Road here,
and I've NEVER registered my vehicle with TxTag.
I'll drive out of my way to avoid using a TxTag road,
so why is it that I've gotten a $2.75 citation?
I'm sure their just randomly selecting Austin drivers from the DPS database to cite them, hoping people pay and not complain.
And they've laid out the roads to where unsuspecting drivers inadvertently enter a non-marked tollway and they can't exit until they pass a toll booth.
If you've even been to Austin, you would know the confusing layout of the tollways.
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Re: TxTag BS Scam
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Houston Much Better At This
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California sends you a ticket for a toll violation and gives you an online place to respond. You just go online, put in your info, and it deducts the toll from your transponder pass account. It's cleared instantly.
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Lets hope time will bring us judges like this.
Thank you
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adamjohn
Florida Drug Rehab
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Department of Transportation
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oliviaharis
massachusetts drug rehab
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Miami real estate
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wiki123
Miami real estate
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Toll Violation
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Re: Toll Violation
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Toll by plate
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