New England states to track (spy) on you across state lines

New England drivers who speed through toll plazas in neighboring states without paying are in for a rude surprise. you're being tracked!

Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire have agreed to crack down on their own residents who frequently blow off tolls in the other states. The three-year-old arrangement has yielded only modest amounts of money, but it is being hailed as a model for interstate cooperation as electronic tolling spreads across the country.

As is always the case its about money, if states & private companies can cash in while spying on motorists TO HELL WITH THE CONSTITUTION!

“It’s really an issue of fairness,” said Chris Waszczuk, administrator of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation’s bureau of turnpikes. “If we don’t have the capability to collect from the out-of-staters, it is going to be a huge problem,” he added.

Forty-two percent of the revenue collected on New Hampshire’s toll roads comes from out-of-state drivers, Waszczuk said. So far, New Hampshire has recovered more than $180,000 from the owners of 190 vehicles over the course of the program, which began in August 2011.

Part of the reason why the collection numbers are so small is because about 70 percent of vehicle owners will pay their missed tolls after getting one or two invoices. Once the state prevents motorists from renewing their registration, Waszczuk said, it collects 95 percent of what it is owed.

“It’s not in the millions,” Waszczuk said, but it “is important to remember that it creates the expectation among the travelers that they will pay.”    
  
Tolling agencies are working to determine what information would have to be on a universal transponder that could work across the country, Gray said. If one is developed, he added, it would still take a while for agencies to deliver them to customers.

In other words a national tracking transponder, which will spy on your every movement!

The three cooperating New England states, though, all use the same E-ZPass system, so their transponders are compatible with each other. The enforcement agreement addresses a “higher level” of interoperability concerns than most agencies are wrestling with, Gray said.   

E-ZPass spies on you everywhere you go, click here to read more.  

The departments of motor vehicles, for example, provide motorists’ information to toll agencies in other states. They also enforce the sanctions on behalf of the outside agencies.

That can be trickier than just sharing information, said Waszczuk. New Hampshire, for example, puts strict limits on its driver data to ensure it is not sold to third parties or turned over to collection agencies. The states had to develop processes to make sure those rules were followed, even after the New Hampshire records were shared with agencies from the other states.

The states also had to determine how vigorously to go after out-of-state toll violators.

Tolling agencies typically wait until a driver avoids multiple tolls before going after him or her. They want to make sure it is worth the effort, and they are wary of being overly punitive, because they don’t want to discourage drivers from using their facilities.

Under the New England agreements, the states agreed to use thresholds similar to the ones where the motorists live. For example, Maine will pursue New Hampshire residents who have missed 20 or more tolls. But it will go after Massachusetts motorists who have racked up $10 or more of tolls.
http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline/headlines/didnt-pay-a-toll-enforcers-might-track-you-across-state-lines-85899542869