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Toll Cheats Costing Roadways Millions Of Dollars

POSTED: 1:33 pm EDT June 29, 2007
UPDATED: 4:49 pm EDT July 9, 2007

A turnpike toll booth camera at SR 17-92 caught a man hanging out the back of a trunk to block the view of a license plate. A motorcycle driver got on his stomach and lifted his feet to hide his plate numbers from a camera. A Channel 9 camera caught a swimming pool cleaner running the toll. His pool cleaning equipment hid his license plate.

"(It's) very frustrating because there is nothing we can do," said David Winn, who manages toll operations for the Expressway Authority and is upset over the number of drivers who are getting a free ride.

Eyewitness news discovered 30,000 drivers a year day blow through toll booths without paying. That adds up to at least $450,000 in lost revenue each month. The Florida Turnpike Authority, which is nearly five times the size of Expressway Authority, loses more than seven times as much money… at least $36-million dollars a year.


SLIDESHOW: See The Cheaters

To combat the problem in South Florida the Turnpike Authority launched a program called "Toll Abuse, No Excuse" which includes stepped up law enforcement. Expressway Authority board member Harvey Massey originally discarded it as too expensive.

"To hire law enforcement to enforce all of our toll gates, all of our toll booths, would be worse than the problem we have," he said.

Massey said the Expressway Authority is counting on a new $650,000 camera system to catch violators. But when it was pointed out that cameras wouldn't help catch drivers who were hiding their plates, Massey changed his tune and said he'd consider adding more law enforcement.


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