If you’re sneaking around, you might want to pay cash for your tolls. WNBC in New York reports that E-ZPass records are showing up with more frequency in divorce cases. The electronic toll records can be subpoenaed in 12 of the states where the system is used for both criminal and civil court cases, and that includes divorce. As you might imagine, the ability of the equipment to record when a person’s car was at a particular location can be damaging.
For the time being, E-ZPass as well as SmarTrip card records can be used only for criminal cases, according to officials in Virginia, Maryland and the District, but it might not be difficult to get that changed. For example, the president of Maryland’s state Senate also does a fair amount of divorce work, and he might be interested in seeing the law changed.
Taxi fares
Neil wrote in with a very lengthy discussion about the current debate on which direction the District should take in terms of taxi fares. Unfortunately, there is not enough room to print his entire argument: “You strike me as a fair man. Therefore, please let me ask you to rethink your solid opposition to the zone system.
“What disturbs me here is that the public has been presented with an ‘either a meter or zone’ choice, when in reality it should be ‘which type of meter will save the consumer money, and benefit him/her?’
“Here’s what is important: The time and/or distance meters are open to the very same abuses that have plagued the zone system — sans meters.
“How is the out-of-towner, or the resident who spends most of his life in a particular section, to know when the driver is taking him out of his way? I’ve lived here 38 years, and there remain sections of this city I have never been in, or been in so infrequently as not to recognize landmarks. A rider going from Union Station to the Kennedy Center could be taken north and then south with both a distance or time meter, and never know it.
“How does a time meter correct the abuse of tourists and residents who don’t know the city as cab drivers do? You can cheat with meters. I once overheard a cab driver school another on how to dip up into one zone, while going to another, and thus add on a third zone. Where there are cheaters, there will always be a way found to cheat. Firm professional ethics, self-enforced by the industry, and with built-in safeguards, are the only defenses the public has. And the zone meter does have a built-in safeguard.
“Why then, the zone system? Because it can more readily be controlled as to price increases, and adjusted as traffic patterns change and population shifts. There are hundreds of older residents without cars, and unable to take public transportation, who rely on taxi transportation to go to thestore or doctor. They benefit from the zone system. They will not be able to afford a time/distance meter system.”
