I feel sorry for y’all up there in Yankee Land. Down here in Oklahoma, we LEGALLY go thru the auto-readers at full turnpike speeds. For most of our 'pikes, that’s 70 or 75 mph. Our ‘pikes are constructed so that those who don’t have a “Pike Pass” (that’s what we call our electronic passes) take a slight detour off the main highway to pay. Pike Pass traffic just keep on truckin’ at full speed. Sorry you guys up there in Yankee Land haven’t got that one figure out yet. Maybe someday…
And too bad you’re having to put up with that ‘slight detour’ - down here in TX no booth, no slowdown for anybody. If you have a pass you pay a discount rate, if not they take a picture of your license plate and send you a bill.
I like that! But seems like that’s a lot of overhead for the turnpike people. What with all the talk about cutting down on gov’t expenditures and all, seems like that would not be very efficient. We don’t have booths either in most cases. You must have the correct change to throw into the funnel. But the Pike Passes are free. No reason not to have one. Even my out-of-state kids have passes for when the visit the state.
I guess it has something to do with Yankee Land getting off the foot path and horse and buggy sometime before the 1970’s. Then there’s the fact that so few people want to live in boring, flat desolate places, so population density stays much lower where you are. That kind of stuff always makes it a lot easier to make major changes to major technological systems.
What you haven’t “figure out” is that it’s much harder to redesign toll booths on highways that are heavily traveled, with development jammed up against both sides of the highway in many cases.
MD and NJ already have exactly the system you are talking about. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Shouldn’t the roads be free in OK? I mean, who would pay money to drive there?
NH now has that system (for the record…NH is in the north east). Our toll booth in Portsmouth…you can drive through at high-way speed if you have EZ-Pass. The rest of the toll booths will also be converted.
Our toll booths (and many others in the North East) were up and running before this technology was available. NH just got EZPass a few years ago…We had a token system. It takes a lot of money to redesign these things…The new Portsmouth toll system cost almost $10 million.
Aw, now y’all have gone and hurt our feelings…
And all of that mismatch of technology just creates mass confusion for those of us who never drive toll roads except once in a blue moon.
As we approach those thingys there’s no logical way to know what the he1l is supposed to happen here !?!
stop and pay ? no people !
How much and where ?
EZ-pass ? What’s that and how does someone get one of those at 75 mph right now this instant ???
What’s a turnpike? 
Traffic jam here is 6 cars on the road stuck behind a tractor.
out here a traffic jam is having to turn off the cruise control and SLOW DOWN to 75 mph.
This thread has me wondering about how many roads are going to magically turn into toll roads now that all you have to do is install an overhead scanner - rather than major toll construction & traffic disruption. “Coming to a road near you…” I hope DOT tells me before they start charging me tolls. Maybe I should put a hold on my EZ-Pass
Not going to happen any time soon. There’s still a lot of people in NH who don’t have a transponder…So those people would need a booth with a person to go through.
Well, except that Texases mentioned that they just skip that part, photograph the license plate and send a bill.
Folks down here south of you Sooners have a mixed bag in Florida. There are some Sunpass lanes where you have to slow down and there are some Sunpass lanes where you can maintain highway speeds.
Maybe one day I will venture up north to Oklahoma to see what life is like in the middle of nowhere.
"I feel sorry for y’all up there in Yankee Land. Down here in Oklahoma, we LEGALLY go thru the auto-readers at full turnpike speeds."
No sympathy necessary. No tolls in my WI, MN, ND SD typical travels.
And feel free to use our toll roads, literally! There’s no way to bill out-of-staters at this time, since TX doesn’t have access to the other state’s car registration records. That lost money is small compared to the savings they’re getting from booth elimination, though.
Sorry texases,they do. When I was last there helping the people on Galveston Island after hurricane IKE. I got a ticket for running a stop sign. The sign was bent over and the street look more like a alley. I slowed down looked both ways. Cop was sitting there. When I got back home I had a letter that the ticket was on my recored here. You cant hide from the computers any more.
Well, then the tollway people haven’t been given access to it. They’ve had to explain why it’s not a big deal.
But you’re right, lots of that info is exchanged. Friend rented a car in Denver, drove to Galveston and back to Denver, got a speeding ticket in TX, the rental company happily charged him $0.50 per mile for the whole trip ($1000 or more) when they were notified of the ticket. His ‘unlimited miles’ rental only applied within CO.
OUCH!
"Shouldn’t the roads be free in OK? I mean, who would pay money to drive there? "
Most are, but some such as the turnpikes are pay-go. You pay to go on them. Most people (including myself) don’t use them often, and therefore only pay when needed - instead of with mandated taxation. I prefer that.
In addition, people live here who pay only $24 a year to register a car, people live here who don’t have to put up with yearly inspections, and people live here who can modify their cars as they see fit without getting government approval.
In other words, people who desire liberty over legislation, state control, and taxation.
Thank God for Oklahoma.