Toronto Traffic Ticket

Female Speaker1:  Whether you are traveling by car, truck or motorcycle California drivers across the States, bridges and toll roads are supposed to pay their fair share.  The surprising number of drivers are cheating the system.  A clear coat spray called photo blocker is helping many drivers avoid tolls and costly tickets.

Shaun Wang:  It gives a high gloss finish on your license plate and what that does is it over exposes to the light cameras.

Female Speaker1:  Distributor Shaun Wang says that the company that makes photo blocker isn’t trying to help people skirt the law, instead it hopes to give drivers a fighting chance against what he says is faulty photo flash technology.  Officials acknowledge many drivers are not purposely trying to cheat the system.  They say in many cases trailer hitches or large license plate frames get in the way of toll cameras preventing authorities from sending those drivers a ticket.  When drivers use photo blocker to obscure their license plates the Bay area toll authority showed us the blank images that result.  Street law maker such as Southern California’s Mimi Walters says deliberately trying to evade a toll is illegal and she says its time to put the breaks on toll cheats.

Mimi Walters:  Right now the toll roads down to my area are losing roughly half a million dollars a month by people evading tolls.

Female Speaker1:  Walter says no one knows exactly how much money is lost due to photo blocker, but there is enough concern about it that a move is now under way in the State Legislature to ban it.

Mimi Walters:  What we want to try to do is have people think twice before they actually use this spray because the alternative to using this spray and it not working is facing six months in jail or a $1000 fine.

Female Speaker1:  The Assembly Appropriations Committee unanimously passed the bill and now its headed to the assembly floor.  Drivers we talked with said they have mixed feelings about the proposed ban.

Female Speaker2:  I think they are sure that people are going to find a way to get pass the new way.

Male Speaker1:  All of us have to pay, I mean there is a reason of what we are paying is that keep up the bridge anyhow so why should you cheat it out?

Male Speaker1:  Now if the proposed ban makes it to the Governor’s desk and he signs it into law, authorities could face an even bigger challenge since photo blocker is invisible to the naked eye, how would authorities can force the ban on something they are unable to see.

Male Speaker1:  Pictures are typically fun to get in the mail unless there are viewed speeding or running a red light accompanied by a ticket.

Female Speaker1:  Those are not [Inaudible] to get but now dozens of companies sell products promising to make your car unidentifiable to law enforcement cameras that do their work and are they legal?  The trouble shooter investigates these new products and has the new you need to know before buying.  Here is Fox 31’s Tom Martino.

Tom Martino:  You know what that white band means?  You know what the flash means and I guess you know what this means?  This guy isn’t happy he got caught by photo radar.  Cameras do a good job catching law breakers some speeders like showing their feelings when they are caught others try to beat the system if you want to protect your rear end keep it in the car and take a look at some products that promise to outsmart photo radar.  Two of the products are special plate covers, one is a special spray, do they really disguise your license plate numbers?  We put these to the test to find out.  The Denver police Department agreed to help us with other test.

Male Speaker2:  Well what we did is we went out the Denver Police driving truck that we set up a simulated 20 mile an hour speed limit.

Tom Martino  We tested all three devices using this city’s photo radar equipment did they work here are the phots from our test drive.  The first plate cover looks like a prism and is supposed to distort plate numbers when viewed from an angle.  Their second plate cover has reflective sparkles and it did a better job the flash reflected off the sparkle so the plate number was over exposed in the picture.  The third product is a spray that worked really well.  It puts a high gloss finish on your plate which causes a reflection and that makes the plate over exposed.  So if you are going to use a plate blocker I suggest this spray the reflective spray does not obstruct plate number from the naked eye at all and nowhere the laws does it say your plate must be photogenic besides officers would not even notice it.  There will always be some who was then the big brother approach to law enforcement.  Where do you stand I am Trouble Shooter Tom Martino Fox 31 news.

Female Speaker1:  Well Tom got the products he tested from phantomplate.com