Claim: New York will be embedding strips in vehicle registration stickers in order to catch speeders.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2007]
New York State started a pilot program upstate north of Albany on the Northway to catch speeders using the Easy Pass system. Recording devices were installed at intervals along the highway. Once an Easy Pass equipped vehicle passes, the device registers the account number and the time. Same is again registered at the next "check-point". Based upon the distance between the register points and the posted speed limit, the state is sending speeding tickets in the mail to the guilty persons.
Because every driver does not have Easy Pass, the State is "perplexed" as what to do to impose the system state-wide. The solution has been found. Soon all new vehicle registration stickers will have a metal strip or chip imbedded in same. This will take the place of the Easy Pass system as stated above. When a vehicle passes the registering device, the strip will relay all the information.
This is not fictional. New York State contracted with VERIZON to install the system. The system has already been installed and the entire Bronx River Parkway in Westchester County has been "wired" for when the new system begins. Once the State makes the new program public and advises all motorists of the potential for numerous speeding tickets, it will also reveal that the system has already been installed.
Another reason that will be given for the new system is to enable the authorities to track stolen vehicles, to trace kidnap victims, to monitor and trace suspected criminals and terrorists, etc.
BIG BROTHER IS ALIVE AND WELL.
Pass this along to every one you know.
Variations: A New England variant of this rumor which claimed that ticket-issuing cameras were being installed along
Origins: Ever since the introduction of the
toll collection points, the theory goes, the system can automatically calculate whether a particular vehicle must have exceeded the speed limit at some point in its journey between the two checkpoints and, if so, automatically issue a citation to the automobile's registered owner (even though no law enforcement officer or device ever actually observed the vehicle in the act of speeding, and there would be no precise record of when and where the infraction occurred, or by how much the speed limit was exceeded). The
We have yet to find any verified accounts of municipalities (in any state) automatically issuing traffic citations based on transit times recorded by electronic toll collection systems. Although many people maintain they have received such citations (or know someone who has), those claims have so far always proved to be misunderstandings: Motorists who travel too fast as they pass by
As for the claim that the state of New York is planning to embed detection strips or chips in vehicle registration stickers in order to catch speeders, we have found no evidence that such a plan is being enacted, and state officials have disclaimed it:
The rumor started circulating through Both the authority and state police said no such plans are in place. Any worried motorists who have heard the false reports should just stick to the speed limit and they won't have any problems, said Guy Holbert of the Thruway Authority office in Syracuse.
Reports that the state Thruway Authority will start using its
WHAM-TV in Rochester, New York, noted that current state law would not allow for the issuance of citations based upon E-ZPass information:
However, in a statement, the New York Thruway Authority said, "The authority and state police do not use E-ZPass to enforce vehicle and traffic law." To do so would require a change in the law. Currently, it takes an observation, or radar by a police officer to charge someone with speeding.
It is true the technology exists to encode documents, such as a driver license, with specific hidden information.
This rumor may have been fostered by a distortion or misunderstanding of New York governor Eliot Spitzer's proposed plan to comply with the
Similar systems (although camera-based rather than RFID-based) for tracking average motorist speeds over a distance have been tried on some particularly accident-heavy stretches of road in other parts of the world.
Last updated: 5 April 2011
 | Sources: |
Ferguson, Renee Boucher. "N.Y. License Plan Sparks Debate." eWeek.com. 10 November 2007. Weibezahl, Sue. "State Won't Target EZ Pass Holders." The [Syracuse] Post-Standard. 6 November 2007. BBC News. "Specs Spies on Speeding Motorists." 14 July 2005. WHAM-TV [Rochester]. "Is Big Brother Watching Thruway Drivers?" 13 November 2007.
