The Tax Collectors Eventually Find You
I wrote a journal post maybe 4 to 5 months back about my confusion about the downtown I-95 Baltimore tunnel tollbooths (around $4 per car/cash). Now for a long time Maryland has essentially forced its drivers to transition to EZPASS, basically a mounted transponder for electronic toll collection which can be refilled, say, against one's credit card. I used to have an early version I used while living in the Chicago area 20 years back. I know I was surprised to find it still worked as I approached a north Virginia tollbooth in the DC suburbs during my initial period of residency in Maryland and probably stuck it in storage when I moved to SC. There are a couple of I-95 tollbooths in Maryland, Baltimore and just north of Aberdeen, a few miles south of the Delaware border. (There are other toll rolls, e.g., Maryland 200 which connects Laurel to I-270 near the Beltway (I-495)) Now for some time all lanes accepted EZPASS, but most lanes were exclusive to EZPASS (you don't have to stop in these lanes but there might be some speed limits). Toll booths vary but typically the rightmost two lanes. It's just for the most part most of my Maryland driving doesn't involve toll roads. I might go through Baltimore from I-95 S, say on the way to BWI. (If I want to avoid the toll I could take the Baltimore Beltway (I-695) through Towson.) Maryland 200 is all-electronic, meaning if you don't have an EZPASS transponder, you have to pay your video toll online. (There is also a modest discount, I believe, for paying tolls via EZPASS.) I think I used it once while I lived in Howard County and paid the video toll online.
So in May I had to get a contractor ID in downtown Baltimore from an unfamiliar location, and going through the tunnel was the most direct route. I remember slowing down and being very confused as it seemed the cash tollbooths were closed (I have no idea what out-of-state drivers must have thought). What the hell was going on? There was no message before the tollways saying no cash tolls and pay online; the driver behind me was pissed off. I think I finally saw a note at the toll booth saying my vehicle tag was being recorded and for me to pay online.
I remember going to the website a few times over the next week or two, and it was a bit of a hassle because they want you to type in a drivers license or vehicle tag, which I haven't memorized (I was driving a relatively new car). I didn't pull up anything (maybe they're done in batch on some schedule I'm not aware of), figured they would eventually mail me a notice or maybe they had suspended cash toll payments during the pandemic (yeah, I know: my readers must be ROFL on how naïve I can be at my age).
To be honest, I had all but forgotten about it when I finally got a form letter (no invoice) addressed to "video tolling customers". (Oh, I'm a customer? They finally found out about the tolls I couldn't pay in May.) They wrote in mid-March they instituted all-electronic tolling (presumably in part due to the pandemic and possible risks to money-handling operations) and had deferred invoice processing as a form of financial relief during the pandemic. Presumably there must be a surcharge for video vs. cash tolling, so they were temporarily honoring cash toll rate invoicing.
So I of course did find my 2 expected tolls (roundtrip) and paid it. And yes, while I was writing this segment I finally set up my new EZPASS account.
Shutdown Diary
I was driving home from a recent visit to Sam's Club when I noticed a diner sign at an intersection advertising dine-in accommodations. How weird after 7 months into a pandemic, dining-in is still a limited option and a distinguishing feature to attract customers. Just out of curiosity, I tried scanning local fast food places: I think Wendy's and Burger King had at least one local dine-in restaurant, almost all Subway's offered the option, and that's about all I could find, none of the McDonald's. Some chain restaurants like Golden Corral, Applebee's were open, as well as chain diners like IHOP, Waffle House, and Bob Evans. Me, I haven't dined out--but not out of COVID fear, but as I've written in the past, I've rarely eaten out except when I travel or in odd situations like I had to go to a hospital and I hadn't eaten all day. In part, it's expensive; as a low-carb dieter I find it hard to find good options, and I hate delays in getting seated and for service.
I've made it clear that I have issues with heavy-handed public policies (shutdowns, face masks, etc.) although I'm not as strident as Tom Woods and others at, e.g., LewRockwell.com. One author at the latter pointed out a CDC report indicating 70-85% of COVID-19 patients report always or mostly wore face masks. (So what's the point of mask policy?) Three basic points I want to make: (1) self-report data are notoriously unreliable. In fact, many respondents probably are unlikely to admit not wearing masks, knowing they should have worn masks; (2) not all masks are created equal; (3) self-protection is not what motivates the policy. (I once had a Twitter exchange with a pro-mask RN, who openly admitted self-protection rationale was dubious.) They want to protect others from possibly asymptomatic infected you. There's not much one can deal with tiny microbes from either direction in airborne transmission. But basically your face covering can mitigate heavy virus-laden respiratory droplets from coughing, sneezing, etc.
From Washpo: (hospitalizations have been on an uptrend lately; positivity rate and diagnosed cases are also trending somewhat higher)
In the past week in the U.S....
Among reported tests, the positivity rate was 5.1%.
The number of tests reported rose 5.1% from the previous week
