Out here in the “wild west” interstates are commonly known as “freeways” for a reason. I have driven in most of the U.S. and don’t recall encountering a toll booth. I have paid tolls in Mexico which are somewhat expensive but result in 4 lane divided smooth nearly deserted 120k (about 75mph) highways that can save hours of time. Similar in Spain.
Last time I went thru Chicago to get to Green Bay I sat for 4 hours on a toll road that was blocked by fatal accidents and fires that resulted from somone who stopped because they missed the detour to pay the toll in cash. I do love my EZ Pass through.
@sgtrock21
phising = phone fishing . . . ?
Faced with a large bill for renovation costs for the aging toll booths and the exorbitant cost of toll takers that have outrageous benefits built into their labor contracts, MA DOT has gone All Electric Tolling (AET) on the Tobin bridge. Camera arrays take pics of your plate. If you have EZ-PASS, they deduct your account. If not, you get invoice in the mail.
Side benefit, no need for traffic to slow down for tolls. But that hardly makes up for all the potential issues I can envision…
“Highway robbery!”
Indeed it is!
And, you don’t always have an alternative to using “tolled” facilities.
Recently, I drove a friend from Central NJ to JFK airport, on NY’s Long Island.
The toll for the Outerbridge Crossing, from NJ to Staten Island, was $13.
The toll for the Verrazano Bridge, from Staten Island to Brooklyn, was–IIRC–$15.
Parking for less a little less than 2 hrs at the airport was $16.
So, not even counting the cost of gas, I paid $44 for this round-trip of less than 80 miles.
Thank God that I don’t have to do this very often…
There is a parallel road to the Greenway that is not toll, and it takes a very long time to go the same distance. There are lots of traffic lights and lots of traffic. A 15 minute trip on the Greenway becomes 30 to 45 minutes or more on the toll-less road. For someone like me on a business trip, the toll makes sense. It is a lot less expensive than charging an additional half hour or more of my time and I get reimbursed for it.
When alternatives exist, it is nice to have the option.
Unfortunately, when it comes to crossing rivers/bays/harbors, and when it comes to parking at an airport, they have you over the proverbial barrel–and they capitalize on that reality.
db4690 "phishing = phone fishing?
You may have something there. The first time I saw the word concerned e-mail fishing but it could have referred to phone fishing which was used in the pre internet days. I only experienced that one time with a call from my “credit card company” to verify information. It seemed legitimate since they had my name and address. When they asked for my credit card number so they could “verify” it I replied “if you are my credit card company you already have my number”. CLICK!
According to Wikipedia, the first recorded use was in 1995 and was likely influenced by the term “phreaking”.
I think the turnpike authority in OK is a bunch of scammers.
It also may be a reference to the jam band known as Phish. In any case it nicely differentiated the computer variety from other kinds of fishing. They send out millions of messages, often via desktop machines they have infected. It’s so cheap to send those messages they don’t need more than a few successes. The great majority of the messages are identified as spurious and thrown away before they get into your in folder. My partner works in legitimate email marketing. (newsletters and the like that the user has subscribed to.) He and I think Google does the best job of getting rid of the junk with almost no false positives. Our domain is hosted by a company that does a pathetic job, so we just had the mail forwarded to Google and they clean it up for me. No one who sends mail to me can tell Google is involved and it is painless for me, too. I do have an Android phone and tablet so am used to their email interface.
Phishing.org says that it is related to phreaks, which is a term for hackers popular in the mid-1990s. It seems like they would know.
Is the rationale that people won't have the exact/correct change anyways, so therefore you have to use EZpass?
Personally I wish there never were any toll roads…But there are and I have to live with it.
I have EZ-Pass. Its very convenient…especially now that many have high-speed lanes where you can go 60mph through. I got mine when traveling to NY a lot and waiting to go through the tolls at the MA NY border…One time without EX-Pass I waited almost 30 minutes while the ONE toll attendant slowly took our money…meanwhile the EX-Pass lane - cars/trucks were just zipping through. I got EX-Pass the next week.
Well thanks for the heads up. I wasn’t surprised when I got an email today telling me to pay up by clicking on the invoice. When I use the tolls, I just pay cash, but I did miss one in Chicago last year so had to go on line and pay them the 80 cents that I owed them. Other than that they don’t know who I am.
What has me a little concerned though is that I also got an email from Wells Fargo today telling me they had disabled my password due to three attempts. Yes they actually had done it and it did come from Wells. They had to give me a temporary one again so I could log in and change it. I don’t have an ATM card or anything with them so not much anyone could do except look at my balance but has me a little concerned. I had just run the virus and malware stuff too. I guess maybe the Ruskies got me.
What has me a little concerned though is that I also got an email from Wells Fargo today telling me they had disabled my password due to three attempts.
Any bank email telling you anything about changing your password or pin…then ignore it…or contact your bank.
Yesterday, I changed my password for my bank and brokerage accounts, and shortly I will do the same for my credit card accounts. I suggest that everyone do the same, before those Russian hackers do damage to you.
@mikeinnh The email really was from Wells Fargo, and my password really had been disabled. It wasn’t phishing. I had to call them to verify my identity, get a temporary password so I could log in and change my user name and password. Just don’t really understand how that would happen. The banker I talked to said it happens all the time.
Either someone has your login ID but not the password or their software needs to be fixed.