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View Full Version : TxDOT - We know where you drove last summer...




Wendi
10-10-2007, 07:04 AM
Big Brother comes to Houston, in the form of TxDOT. Hiring security firms to videotape drivers, and using license plate records to mail surveys to their homes??? Asking questions like, where were you going, who was with you, and how many people live in your home????? :eek::eek::eek:




http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5201674.html

Oct. 10, 2007, 1:59AM
TxDOT knows where you went
It hired a firm to film plates, send surveys — a move some call sneaky

By PEGGY FIKAC
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau




AUSTIN — Did you drive on Interstate 35 in early September? Where were you going, and why? How many people were in the car with you? And by the way, how many people live in your house?


The Texas Department of Transportation wants to know, and a company it hired may have videotaped your license plate, then sent you a survey to find out.
The survey is being done in the name of sound transportation planning. Officials say the method has been used before in Texas and elsewhere. But it has some feeling uncomfortable, and others crying, "Big Brother."


Alliance Transportation Group Inc. (http://www.alliance-transportation.com/), under a $781,588.53 contract with the state, mailed about 150,000 surveys to homes containing an explanation startling to some: "You are being asked to participate in these efforts because the license plate of a vehicle registered in (your) name was randomly recorded" during a highway trip.


"It almost feels sneaky," said Alison Unger, an Austin communications professional who got the survey after traveling to San Antonio for Rosh Hashana.


Unger has no ill will toward TxDOT but is concerned about whether her personal information will be protected. She said she likely wouldn't answer the survey.
Some were outraged about the survey after being videotaped by cameras tucked into orange barrels at 21 locations outside metro areas on I-35 and nearby highways from north of Laredo, through the San Antonio area to north of Dallas, some 450 miles.


Similar surveys are expected next year in the Houston, Galveston, Beaumont and Port Arthur areas, although with changes incorporated to reflect concerns expressed by drivers.


"This is Big Brother-ish," said Sal Costello, a fierce critic of TxDOT who founded a Web site — TexasTollParty.com (http://texastollparty.com/action_tellYourReps2.php) — to fight the way toll roads were planned by the agency. "It is an invasion of privacy."


Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said, "It's one thing to study traffic patterns, but to ask all this personal information of people makes you wonder why they are doing it. ... This is more than Orwell ever imagined."
TxDOT spokeswoman Gaby Garcia said the information won't be shared or sold and will be disposed of in a secure fashion. This is the first time the state has conducted a comprehensive transportation survey on the entire I-35 corridor, and the information is vital to planning, she said.


"With the heavy traffic demand already on I-35, one of the state's busiest interstate corridors, this survey will help us better forecast future demand and needed improvements," Garcia said.


She said the survey is voluntary and that people don't have to participate or answer all the questions. Since the survey was mailed about three weeks ago after the Sept. 12-13 license-plate videotaping, about 3,000 people have responded, she said.


About 200 have called a toll-free number included with the survey, with most asking about its purpose and "a few callers unhappy that they received a survey," she said.


Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican who has worked to stem TxDOT's drive toward privately run toll roads, said something else caught her eye.
"With TxDOT continuing to spill forth that they have no money to build highways, I find it very interesting they have a lot of money to do mailings to 150,000 people and ad campaigns of $8 (million) and $9 million," she said.
Civil engineering professor Chandra Bhat, of the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Transportation Research, said such surveys have been used in many states.


The downside with a survey based on videotaping license plates, Bhat said, is that the data quality may not be as good and there can be a negative public perception: "Uncle Sam sneaking up, essentially."
Garcia said the agency plans to let drivers know of the survey beforehand the next time: "It was by no means meant to be sneaky," Garcia said. "Lesson learned."
pfikac@express-news.net

constituent
10-10-2007, 07:09 AM
they've been at this for awhile now... it's a shame, but true.

local PD in Victoria do the same thing, but they check for papers
and issue tickets.

highway patrol does it on small rural routes like alternate 90,
texas highway 80, and 123.

i've seen papers checked in austin at the intersection of riverside
and 35. I've seen whole exits and lanes closed that when the
camera catches someone crossing the line, even if they decide
against using the arbitrarily closed exits, an officer waiting just
ahead pulls you over as you pass.

TXDOT, like almost all branches of the current state government
has far overstepped the bounds of decency in the last decade.

Just wait until they farm out the enforcement.

Johnnybags
10-10-2007, 07:14 AM
Where were you going, and why? How many people were in the car with you? And by the way, how many people live in your house?



Mexico - Pick up drugs, 1 person on the way down-8 on the way back,7 illegals- I am up to 27 living in my house til they can get id's and go to work building the superhighway. Just be honest folks.

Marshall
10-10-2007, 07:17 AM
Where were you going, and why? How many people were in the car with you? And by the way, how many people live in your house?



Mexico - Pick up drugs, 1 person on the way down-8 on the way back,7 illegals- I am up to 27 living in my house til they can get id's and go to work building the superhighway. Just be honest folks.

And then a month later at 5 AM a SWAT team storms your house :p

constituent
10-10-2007, 07:23 AM
yesterday, "authorities" closed down highway 77 south... inexplicably, we were turned around and had to find a country road way around.... ended up on 77 further south, and it was still closed... we just so happened to find a backroad that emptied out,

but anyway, yesterday 77 south was closed for MILES between Victoria and Refugio...

any theories?

::hazmat situation::

kylejack
10-10-2007, 07:31 AM
Tucked into orange barrels? Christ. I'm going to start stealing those things.

MsDoodahs
10-10-2007, 08:00 AM
I already have a Texas Gazetteer, but because Texas is sooo big, it's not as detailed as the ones for other states.

If you don't already have a Gazetteer, GET ONE for your state and any that border you that you might need to travel into.

They show all the backroads.

We don't leave home without 'em.

http://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?promotion=8672&section=10096

constituent
10-10-2007, 08:32 AM
here (http://txdot.lib.utexas.edu/) is where i get my county maps.

Wendi
10-10-2007, 09:17 AM
There's nothing like *experience* to learn the back-roads around where you live. I like to go out randomly driving on unknown back roads in my area on a Saturday morning... have had many interesting adventures that way and the result is... I know how to get hundreds of miles from Houston without ever touching main roadways. Could prove useful some day (Rita taught many good lessons along those lines).

constituent
10-10-2007, 09:26 AM
^ALL CITY PEOPLE: ALERT!!!

Stay off of all Texas Backroads. It's bad enough you've ruined the cities. Please
let us have our countryside!

Wendi
10-10-2007, 10:00 AM
^ The people didn't ruin the roads. Mismanagement by government did - and I am one "city person" that has been very active in the fight against TXDOT's attempt to take not only your precious roads, but your homes and land as well. If you really want to see something get ruined, let them go ahead and build the TTC why don't you?

constituent
10-10-2007, 10:39 AM
the TTC in principal is a positive development. we need mega-infrastructure overhauls (too many rural roads have turned into highways to serve the mass exodus of ex-urban retirees). the way they are going about it, determined to squeeze blood from a rock i'd say, is all wrong and worth protesting. the way property owners are going to be ripped off on the purchase and resale of their land is a major problem. the fact that it will be built mostly on the ground instead of elevated or underneeth is a major long-term environmental problem.

i think we need to (as a society) begin working our way back to open range (but this is a very in-depth discussion we can have at another time), this
development is a good reason to open up that discussion. we've destroyed the earth with barbed-wire... let the healing begin (IMO).

these are what we need to be protesting, these are things actually in our control. i know you don't plan on bombing construction sites or anything real about it, so don't bust the "high and mighties" out on me.

i'd say that you and too many others are doing more to confuse the issue and block positive developments, while the negatives that you might actually be able to work to correct continue on unchecked... manufactured dissent, again.

throwing yourself and others under the bus i'd say.

constituent
10-10-2007, 10:44 AM
^ The people didn't ruin the roads.

i'm fine w/ the ruined roads, it's the crowds i don't dig.

EvilEngineer
10-10-2007, 10:47 AM
How to answer that form...

1. Where were you going?
To your house.
2. How long were you going to stay there?
As long as it took for you to come home.
3. What did you plan on doing there?
Come home and find out.
4. How many people live with you?
None, but the human puppets I'll make from your kids will be a nice addition.

saku39
10-10-2007, 11:17 AM
I find all this video surviellence crap very disbturbing.

Wendi
10-10-2007, 12:48 PM
Wow. I never thought I'd run into TTC promoters here :eek:

constituent
10-10-2007, 01:03 PM
^no I'm a TTC adversary, but i'm also a realist. i also see the benefits of a
highway that i can load up the dog and baby on, and throw a cruz down
to the pacific coast... not to mention rail travel into the cities from out in the country.

i have friends and family in pretty much all of the cities (incl. dallas/ft. worth)
or i would never bother visiting. if we could just hop a train from out here
in nowhere to the city... that'd rock! and when my daughter gets a little
older, if she could have the level of independence that cheap rail travel
would provide... i think that would be a good thing for her too.

for the rural folks, the TTC will prove to be a good thing (not so much for
those property owners under the dozer, which is one of the major problems).
it will force a necessary change in the way we perceive land use, development,
etc. whether or not that is the place of governments and corporations is another
debate.

no one will realistically be able to stop it as it is largely born of necessity and is
in a sense inevitable. however this is not to say that the direction of development
is out of our reach, and certainly worth considering. foot dragging will only run up the cost,
and give God knows how many excuses to charge us even more when it
is all said and done with.

Wendi
10-10-2007, 02:26 PM
Let me get this straight - you don't like city people & crowds and you blame "us" for "ruining" the Texas back roads... but you support a 12 lane superhighway constructed by a foreign government with our tax dollars on land that is stolen from the property owners?

Thanks for the enlightenment. I think I'm done with this threadjacking discussion now.

constituent
10-10-2007, 02:32 PM
...constructed by a foreign government with our tax dollars on land that is stolen from the property owners?



Strawman, blah blah... I've made it abundantly clear that what you say here
are among the problems i have with the TTC... one wonders, did you even
bother reading or are you just reacting?

judging from you well reasoned stance on the TTC issue, and you superior
methods of argumentation, I'd be inclined to believe the latter... if history
is to be our guide.

so your attempt to tie them in w/ my POV really only reinforces my arguement
that your position has a problematic lack of genuine thought. if you want your
little sixties protest the man trip, fine... but be smart about it. all i'm sayin'

lucius
10-10-2007, 03:15 PM
the TTC in principal is a positive development. we need mega-infrastructure overhauls (too many rural roads have turned into highways to serve the mass exodus of ex-urban retirees). the way they are going about it, determined to squeeze blood from a rock i'd say, is all wrong and worth protesting. the way property owners are going to be ripped off on the purchase and resale of their land is a major problem. the fact that it will be built mostly on the ground instead of elevated or underneeth is a major long-term environmental problem.

i think we need to (as a society) begin working our way back to open range (but this is a very in-depth discussion we can have at another time), this
development is a good reason to open up that discussion. we've destroyed the earth with barbed-wire... let the healing begin (IMO).

these are what we need to be protesting, these are things actually in our control. i know you don't plan on bombing construction sites or anything real about it, so don't bust the "high and mighties" out on me.

i'd say that you and too many others are doing more to confuse the issue and block positive developments, while the negatives that you might actually be able to work to correct continue on unchecked... manufactured dissent, again.

throwing yourself and others under the bus i'd say.

I am going to disagree with you concerning the TTC, this is a boondoggle and wrong on all levels: you don’t have Texas Governor Rick Perry hanging out with the Bilderberg Group for giggles and grins. Pay tribute to your new international masters or get in the fight.

Start here: http://www.satollparty.com/ and here: http://www.texasturf.org/index.php

I am on the finance committee.

Matt Collins
10-10-2007, 05:32 PM
I saw an article about how Ohio has cameras setup on all major interstates and they regularly scan and capture the numbers of the plates and then compare them against stolen cars and known suspects etc... THAT is scary!


Here is the article and write-up:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/30/0145253

The ACLU is objecting to the practice of police in Springdale, Ohio using an automated license-plate scanner on patrol cars to locate stolen vehicles or those whose owners are wanted on felony warrants. The scanner can read 900 license plates an hour traveling at highway speeds. So far, the scanner has located 95 stolen cars and helped locate 111 wanted felons. The locations of the license plates scanned are tagged with GPS data. All matches are stored (with no expiration date given) and can be brought up later and cross-referenced on a map. If the plate is wanted, the times and locations of where it was scanned can be referenced. The Springdale police department hopes to begin using the system soon to locate misdemeanor suspects. This system is also in use in British Columbia."