CAMPOut: Fay's Rehoboth Journal

Not only is Big Brother watching you, but he knows where you are going and how fast you get there.

Yes, folks, two decades past the infamous 1984 that Orwell warned us about, the truth is far worse than we feared. And the culprit is E-ZPass.

Don’t get me wrong. I love zipping through toll booths, not stopping to wrestle with quarters and dimes. I adore shooting right through the express lanes while hapless motorists fiddle with electric windows and lollygagging toll payers. I’m positively giddy about getting tolls deducted from my debit account and never worrying about a fist full of silver sliding into my gearshift to screw up my transmission.

But holy moly, don’t ever run afoul of the bureaucrats who monitor the whole East Coast E-ZPass Grid. It’s an army of public servants like you’ve never encountered before.

I fear I am forever doomed to be an E-ZPass scofflaw, evermore labeled an E-ZPass offender, possibly with my name and tag number emblazoned on a web site akin to the ubiquitous sex offender warnings.

And it’s all over 35 cents.

Imagine my surprise one day, when I opened the mail to find a "Notice of Enforcement Action for delinquent toll payment" from my friends at New Jersey E-ZPass. There it was, a crisp, clear photo of my late lamented Subaru’s rear end, with its clearly visible RB sticker, luggage, license plate and yapping Schnauzers.

Holy Batman! They got us on Candid Camera. And I owed thirty-five cents and a twenty-five dollar payoff, er…administrative fee.

Hmmmm….I did kind of recall one instance on a recent return trip from New York when I zipped through the E-ZPass Only lane on the Jersey Turnpike and thought I heard bells go off. It couldn’t have been for me, I was an E-ZPass member in good standing.

Or so I thought.

I immediately called New Jersey E-ZPass, which, after a mind-numbing selection of numerical menu choices, finally allowed me to speak with a cousin of Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine character. I explained my receipt of the violation notice and got bounced around to several disinterested parties before I was finally told to call Delaware where I belonged.

Ladies and gentlemen, our own E-ZPass squad was not significantly better. They officiously explained that my account balance had ebbed to zero and they were unable to retrieve more moola from my bank.

Oh really? Why? I distinctly recalled phoning E-ZPass with news of my recently updated debit card, with its new expiration date. What went wrong to turn me into a moving violation? I confirmed my debit card number with the customer disservice operator and oops, Delaware E-ZPass had that silly little expiration date written down wrong.

"Our fault,"said the clerk, "I’ll correct it."

"Okay, but can you call New Jersey and keep them from putting out an all points bulletin for me? Can you get me off the wanted list? Take my photo out of the Cranbury New Jersey Post Office?"

No, their supervisors did not permit them to call New Jersey. While I could see why they didn’t want to, I couldn’t understand why I had to continue to try and clear my own name. After all, Delaware goofed.

Needless to say, it took about eleven phone calls to the Garden State to clear up the matter and ended with me sending E-ZPass a check—a check!—for thirty-five cents.

Days later, that Subaru went to the great turnpike in the sky, but not before I unnapped the Velcro and snapped the E-ZPass transponder ("Beam me up, Scotty") off the windshield.

As we had occasion to travel back and forth to Wilmington several times over the past two weeks in our new car, I could be found approaching all toll booths by holding the transponder aloft like the Statue of Liberty’s torch and hoping the Big Brother could validate me.

At one point, Bonnie was driving Route One outside Smyrna and failed to wave the transponder at the right moment. She did not have to ask for whom the toll belled, it belled for thee.

Envisioning her spouse spending long days journeys into nights bouncing around the SleazyPass phone system while being entertained by Muzak, she knew she was in trouble. She pulled over and went directly to the toll booth staff and turned herself in.

They let her pay the toll in cash (imagine that!) seconds, I’m sure, before that GreedyPass administrative fee would have kicked in.

When the officer saw our temporary tags, he went pale, realizing we were in real jeopardy and immediately entered our new car into the system. I can’t imagine what the E-ZPass forensic team would have done with a photo of a violating VW using the transponder from a deceased Subaru. I think the officer saved us from death by hanging. Or at least hanging onto the phone until we wanted to die.

So that, I thought, was the saga of E-ZPass. Until today, when I retrieved my mail and found a Second Notice of Enforcement Action from the State of New Jersey. Apparently, they’d processed my thirty-five cent check, but forgot they forgave the wretched administrative fee.

With phrases like "Delinquent Toll payment," "Recorded violations," "Civil Penalty and $200 fine," staring up at me from my violation notice, I am sending New Jersey the damned $25.

I obviously do not have the required inter-state negotiating skills to get this thing cleared up any other way. I doubt that the entire Delaware River and Bay Authority could straighten this thing out. I’m sure the Boss, Bruce Springsteen himself, couldn’t use his Jersey influence here. Frankly, I’d call the Governor of New Jersey for help, but he has his own problems….

E-Z? My ass.