For whom the bill tolls
There are scams and then there are scams. Some aim high and try to rake in big bucks. Others are truly nickel-and-dime operations.
Please keep in mind that the gentleman in question, who is now charged with selling license plate covers to confound the 407 ETR cameras and avoid charges for using the higway, is innocent until proven guilty.
If you don’t want to pay the price, don’t use the highway. It’s that simple. The charges are legal and they’re going to be imposed one way or another. But the 401 is free!
But I’ve often wondered about some of these laws involving driving and other vehicular matters. For example, you can legally buy a license plate cover that has a tint to it, but you can be charged if you use it to hide your plate number.
You have to have an emission test on your vehicle, but you can fool the system by using a product available at any store that sells auto products, and running it through with a tank of gas. It’s legal and it works, so I’m told. The loser is the environment which is supposed to be protected by the removal of vehicles that are spewing too many toxins into the air.
So if this one man did, indeed, sell the covers - and that has yet to be proven in court - it’s a little disturbing but it seems to be just the tip of what some people will do to get out of paying the piper. Police say all sorts of people have tried all sorts of things to evade detection.
I can’t afford to eat at North 44 or Bymark every week, but I don’t go in and dine and dash. I just don’t go! The same should apply to those who don’t want to pay the tolls for the 407.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:18 am
The problem here is that our society contains so much bureaucracy that it actually helps people get away. If people can avoid detection, they will — human nature. This sort of thing should be nipped in the bud. Why publish what the technology does in order to catch you? It stands to order that if people know how they are going to get caught doing something, they’ll come up with ways to avoid it.
I heard that the licence plate on your car cannot have any sort of cover (clear or otherwise) and that the cops can stop/ticket you if they want. Just charge a few vendors selling those things and sales of it will reduce to blackmarket levels.
Its funny how the ‘free world’ ends up shooting itself in the foot in its eternal quest to be ‘free’.