ORLANDO, Fla. — It's safe to say that no one wants to pay tolls or red light tickets. But some have taken that desire to the extreme, officials said.
Thousands of dollars are lost each year due to Florida drivers who've gone out of their way to avoid paying tolls and traffic citations. And 9 Investigates discovered they are getting help online in skirting the law.
A 9 Investigates producer spotted a vehicle traveling down Colonial Drive in east Orlando with piercing, flashing lights on both sides of the SUV’s license plate. It might not seem like much of an issue. But law enforcement and expressway authority officials told Channel 9’s Greg Warmoth, those flashing lights are illegal.
The devices are used to blind toll cameras, obscure tags and even keep eyewitnesses or law enforcement from reading license plates. We took the cellphone video, recorded by our producer, to the Florida Highway Patrol.
"This is something very new to us,” said Steven Montiero with Florida Highway Patrol.
It’s an updated way of cheating the system, which 9 Investigates has shown you before with E-Pass cheats, who use creative ways to disguise or conceal tags with their hands, dirt, parts of the car or other items.
“We've seen people put covers on their tags to either protect them or to evade camera work,” Montiero said.
“But we have yet to see this type of LED lighting used,” he said of the flashing lights around the license plate our producer recorded.
We did some digging online, and it turns out that LED lighting is just one method marketed to drivers who want to avoid paying tolls or red light camera tickets.
"Are you surprised that the internet now is filled with ways that people can cheat the system?” WFTV anchor Greg Warmoth asked Montiero.
"I don't think we're surprised at anything we see on the internet anymore,” Montiero said. “I think we're just surprised at the intentional disregard for basic traffic laws.”
A quick Google search pulled up plenty of websites advertising ways to evade tolls and other traffic citations. One product we found is designed specifically to avoid red light cameras.
We ordered one of the simple license plate brackets and attached it to one of our vehicles. The unit uses a flash to counter the one typically thrown by red light cameras when it captures images of cars going through intersections.
To demonstrate how it and other similar devices work, we set up our own intersection at WFTV with a mock traffic light and a camera strobe. When we drove through the “red light,” the results showed that you can you can make out the car but not the plate. It was completely obscured by the flash.
Even though selling the devices is legal, Florida law enforcement officials say that using them is not.
“It's unfortunate that we can hop online and just Google anything and it appears here … especially encouraging people to break the law," Montiero said.
Florida statute 320.061 states no driver can interfere with the ability to record any detail on a license plate, which would indicate that even though the device doesn't physically cover the plate, it's still illegal.
However, when we contacted the company behind the product, its president said: “We do stand by our statement regarding permissibility of use in Florida.”
But FHP doesn't agree.
“You're obstructing the view of the tag,” Montiero said. “It's our job to remind you, you're not going to get away with it every time.”
If you’re caught using a device meant to conceal your tag, you could be charged with a felony, depending on how much money has been lost.
The device we purchased online cost $400. Some might consider that a small investment to avoid costly red light camera tickets. But others would view it as a risk not worth taking.
Cox Media Group
