I-90 NY Thruway CB chatter ...

I have heard this before. Not sure. However I do know that they (at least used to) use scales with tolling.

 

I was told the scales at toll booths are there to calculate how much toll you should pay. I have company supplied ez pass so I don't know if that is true.

 

They they are counting axles, not weight. Tolls are generally paid by the axle.

 

Not completely correct in every state. I know from personal experience that PA uses weight (or at least used to) in vehicle class computations. Honestly I think they use both weight as well as axles. When I was doing repos way back when I got a wrecker out of Harrisburg PA. Went down to get on the Turnpike. I forgot what class they applied to me, but after filling the tank in Breezewood I got back on the turnpike only to see I had been bumped up 2 classes. Only thing that was different was my weight. Even if the scales were off you still have to see that weight was being used. At least there in PA.

 

PA turnpike website shows different toll charges for vehicle weight classes in addition to axle count.

 

Thank you! I wonder if NY does the same thing.

 

First off, they *always* take multiple pictures of your vehicle and collect weight, axle, speed, geiger and chemical readings and a lot of other data going through EZ-Pass enabled toll plazas. Even more in NY State.

The EZ-Pass standard calls for "scales" as one part of the overall detection of and class assignment of the vehicle. The upgrades they're making to the Throughway as part of the conversion to cashless tolling would theoretically allow them to issue overweight tickets by mail, but it's not "standard practice" yet.

That being said, knowing NY State, I'll bet they sent out perhaps a handful of them to clearly egregious and known offenders waiting for one of them to sue so they could get the court challenges and case law set up and ready in time for the cashless rollout.

 

The throughway does not toll by weight, it's only by height and axle.

That being said, they *will* ticket you if you're over 80,000 lbs, with penalties increasing past the 100k and 110k limits. You're required to get a permit if you're over 80k lbs., pay a fee, etc. Whereas on the PA turnpike, Class 8 is over 80k, Class 9 is over 100k and this is taken into account at the gate.

 

I believe they are just counting axles. I go through there overweight all the time, not extremely heavy but over.