Another Model S owner is using my license plates!

[zan99]

Yesterday, I received a Notice of Toll Evasion from FasTrak for the Dumbarton Bridge in the Bay Area. It included a photo of what appears to be the license plate of my Model S, except with a different registration month. Since I live in Los Angeles, and was nowhere near the bridge on the date of the infraction, I called FasTrak to dispute it. To my surprise, they said the car in the photo was a Model S too! And maybe even the same color as mine! (Though there was some confusion, gray vs. silver.) After going back and forth with FasTrak, who originally said it was my burden to prove that I wasn't in the area at the time, they eventually agreed that the plate in the photo may have been altered (an "E" turned into an "F") and thus it seems I'm off the hook. I've contacted the DMV and ordered new plates.

But it's all strange, the car being a Model S too, and the location, not far from the Tesla factory in Fremont.

Has this happened to anyone else?

 

[HHHH]

No sir, then again FasTrak is often off of their rocker as I recall from living in SF for 7 years. I now live in Vegas, where we have no tolls.

 

[MassX1317]

Do you have a vanity plate? I wonder if he wasn't trying to be malicious and stupidly covered a letter to have the same clever vanity plate. What a pain for you, some people just have no common sense!

 

[bareyb]

Yesterday, I received a Notice of Toll Evasion from FasTrak for the Dumbarton Bridge in the Bay Area. It included a photo of what appears to be the license plate of my Model S, except with a different registration month. Since I live in Los Angeles, and was nowhere near the bridge on the date of the infraction, I called FasTrak to dispute it. To my surprise, they said the car in the photo was a Model S too! And maybe even the same color as mine! (Though there was some confusion, gray vs. silver.) After going back and forth with FasTrak, who originally said it was my burden to prove that I wasn't in the area at the time, they eventually agreed that the plate in the photo may have been altered (an "E" turned into an "F") and thus it seems I'm off the hook. I've contacted the DMV and ordered new plates.

But it's all strange, the car being a Model S too, and the location, not far from the Tesla factory in Fremont.

Has this happened to anyone else?

I guess we just figured out a legitimate reason for why people blur out their license plates in photos. As an aside… how freakin' TIGHT do you have to be, to go to all the trouble to block out a number on your license plate to save five dollars at a Toll Booth…

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

Fast track sucks when you don't live in the area. PITA. I had an unpaid toll that I swear I paid or at least tried to pay and it ended up at a collection agency! Mailing a bill each time someone crosses the GG bridge seems like a gigantic wast of paper and resources but I guess the post offices are hurting and need to mail more junk.

+ there is no way to pay for the person behind you now!! WTF?

I am really considering removing my plate and putting the 'Zero Emissions' back on next time I am come down. ... this weekend
TIGHT! but flashing a hang loose out the window

 

[bonnie]

Moderator Note: Political comments moved to Politics - Quarantine Thread - Page 8

Try to keep politics out of the main forum, please. It's not the first time you've been asked.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Yesterday, I received a Notice of Toll Evasion from FasTrak for the Dumbarton Bridge in the Bay Area. It included a photo of what appears to be the license plate of my Model S, except with a different registration month. Since I live in Los Angeles, and was nowhere near the bridge on the date of the infraction, I called FasTrak to dispute it. To my surprise, they said the car in the photo was a Model S too! And maybe even the same color as mine! (Though there was some confusion, gray vs. silver.) After going back and forth with FasTrak, who originally said it was my burden to prove that I wasn't in the area at the time, they eventually agreed that the plate in the photo may have been altered (an "E" turned into an "F") and thus it seems I'm off the hook. I've contacted the DMV and ordered new plates.

But it's all strange, the car being a Model S too, and the location, not far from the Tesla factory in Fremont.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Telematics in your car may be able to corroborate your story. Have you asked Tesla to see if they tracked your car's location that day?

 

[NoMoGas]

So, some moron is driving around a $100,000.00 car but evading $5.00 tolls by altering the plate (a Felony in California for just this reason)?

Ya really gotta wonder about some people.

 

[yobigd20]

So, some moron is driving around a $100,000.00 car but evading $5.00 tolls by altering the plate (a Felony in California for just this reason)?

Ya really gotta wonder about some people.

Well, if he does it twice a day for 27 years straight, he'll have saved $100k. Just sayin.

 

[ecarfan]

I guess we just figured out a legitimate reason for why people blur out their license plates in photos. As an aside… how freakin' TIGHT do you have to be, to go to all the trouble to block out a number on your license plate to save five dollars at a Toll Booth…

Or perhaps the owner of the Tesla with the apparently modified plate altered it to make it read like a vanity plate? (Not to avoid paying tolls) Which would be stupid of course.

I live in the Bay Area and use Fastrak. That's a good point about the Golden Gate lack of toll takers being a problem for out of towners. I think all the other bridges have humans in booths to take payments.

 

[Owner]

I think it was just a weird fluky typo by the software that reads the plates.

 

[Kermit]

After going back and forth with FasTrak, who originally said it was my burden to prove that I wasn't in the area at the time, they eventually agreed that the plate in the photo may have been altered (an "E" turned into an "F") and thus it seems I'm off the hook. I've contacted the DMV and ordered new plates.

But it's all strange, the car being a Model S too, and the location, not far from the Tesla factory in Fremont.

Has this happened to anyone else?

When I got my Tesla in May 2013, all of a sudden a whole bunch of Teslas appeared in my neighborhood (Silicon Valley) and they all had the same license prefix as mine. I think Tesla factory delivery just submitted license registration requests in batches and the plates came out with sequential numbers. Keep in mind that Tesla factory delivers more cars in a day than a typical franchise dealer, and unlike a Chevy store, they are all exactly the same make and model. So having a bunch of Teslas with nearly the same plate is probably the norm in NorCal.

 

[TEG]

When I got my Tesla in May 2013, all of a sudden a whole bunch of Teslas appeared in my neighborhood (Silicon Valley) and they all had the same license prefix as mine. I think Tesla factory delivery just submitted license registration requests in batches and the plates came out with sequential numbers. Keep in mind that Tesla factory delivers more cars in a day than a typical franchise dealer, and unlike a Chevy store, they are all exactly the same make and model. So having a bunch of Teslas with nearly the same plate is probably the norm in NorCal.

Yes, Tesla got a whole bunch of sequential CA plates, so there are bunches of Model S with similar looking plates.

 

[wormhole]

why is the other MS owner immediately guilty here? 1) the DMV shouldn't allow duplicate license plates (in referring to why people blur out their plates), if someone applies for a license plate that's taken, the DMV should reject the application. 2) could it not be mistake by the DMV? 3) Could it not be a mistake by FasTrack in that they guy does have a fastrack but it didn't record? I mean for people to immediately judge this other party as guilty when i think we can also say government bureaucracy isn't exactly infallible...


sucks for the OP, but i'm sure it will ultimately work out given that 1) his fastrack has GPS but he can prove it wasn't him which 2) is assigned to his car and VIN and registration.

 

[jyc]

It might not be anything malicious by the owner; it could just be malpositioning of the plate or license plate frame; something similar happened to us last June. For our incident, it turns out the license plate frame on the offending car was sitting high relative to the plate (or the plate was low, relative to the frame), cutting off the bottom of the numbers/letters on the license plate. That made their "E" look like our "F" and that's how we got mailed a violation notice.

Thankfully I was able to discern that in the small picture they sent on the violation notice and was able to contest it successfully.

 

[Seattle]

Another possibility that I read had happened in Seattle - the dmv messed up the date of some photos, and they started reprocessing old pictures, saying that people who had paid a few months ago had just gone through the toll area again.