I-Team: Drivers Using New Tool To Avoid Mass. Tolls
BOSTON (CBS) - Toll cheaters have a new tool to avoid paying their fair share, and it's costing Massachusetts taxpayers money.
Some go to great lengths to obstruct their license plates to avoid getting caught flying through tolls without an EZ Pass transponder.
The numbers are small. Massachusetts State Police and MassDOT estimate fewer than one percent of drivers try to evade tolls. But those numbers add up.
"The major problem with evading tolls is we're losing that revenue," said acting MassDOT Commissioner Frank DePaola.
In the first six months of this year, MassDOT busted 4,000 drivers for obstructed plates.
Adding a new wrinkle is open road tolling on the Tobin Bridge. From July 21st through October there were 10,000 plates that were unreadable by overhead cameras.
Some are accidental, but now a new industry has sprouted up to help people get away with skipping their toll payments. A simple online search uncovers dozens of websites offering products with a ticket free guarantee.
The products are designed to make license plates unreadable by the cameras. The I-Team purchased one. From head on, the license plate cover looks normal. From an angle, like a traffic camera would shoot, you can't make out the numbers because of a hologram.
"Your plate has to be visible, can't be obscured, has to be illuminated to 60 feet," said Major Terry Hanson of the Massachusetts State Police.
Plate covers are illegal, including the darkly tinted ones the I-Team spotted all over the roads. When we tried to talk to drivers we saw using obscured plates, most denied knowing they were doing anything wrong.
"My mechanic, he told me it's illegal, but I didn't know that," said one delivery driver
"Do you go through tolls with them?" we asked another woman. "Yeah," she replied.
MassDOT officials expect the number of toll evaders could grow as the state goes full open road tolling. They will increase enforcement if necessary. DePaola says they already have plans to ask the legislature to stiffen penalties and raise the $35 fine.
For other drivers, it's just a matter of fairness.
"It's just getting around something you shouldn't be doing. It's not right at all," one man said.
Send tips for the I-Team to iteam@cbsboston.com or call 617-779 TIPS
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