What will happen when the Thruway no longer has toll-takers?
With ominous skies on Tuesday, July 24, the Old Men of the Mountain headed out to the Your Way Café in Schoharie. Fortunately, the OMOTM met no rain on the way to the café.
Most people have heard that the Thruway is going to go without toll takers, so the OFs started asking a lot of “what ifs.” Some thought that the state of Massachusetts had it under control. This did not satisfy most of the OFs.
One OF brought up this cool scenario: What if someone took pictures of out-of-state license plates in a parking lot like Colonie Center? This entrepreneurial fellow took the pictures and printed them out on either high-grade cardboard, or even on metal.
Now he gives them to his friends, and uses one himself and places it on his vehicle. Now when the pictures of the plate taken at the toll scanner shows a car from Texas and some poor guy in Texas receives a bill from the New York State Thruway Authority saying he owes a buck-eighty to New York, how long do you think anyone would have to wait before that piece of paper hits the trash can?
Now the state has a bill not paid and they start proceedings. However, this guy can prove he was taking his kids to school, and had never even left his hometown, let alone traveled to New York. It is possible to see the state losing big bucks if this would be repeated over and over.
One OF came up with a clever idea that some college kids could use as a math study. Print out 20 artificial plates all alike. Then place them on 20 cars, and the plan would be to place all 20 cars at different booths along the Thruway.
Then have all the cars positioned to enter the booth at approximately the same time and mathematically using speed and distance have them exit the Thruway at the same time. They would do this in short time and use a short distance as they mathematically could. After the prank is done, they would put their own plates back on the vehicle.
What would this do to the computer that would receive identical information up and down the Thruway at the same time? The OF added, “Gee, I wish I was young again.”
Then one killjoy OF said, “If you guys can think this, I am sure it’s already been thought about and the state surely has thought about it and they have ways to detect and correct, so who would do this just to save a few bucks? Makes no sense to me.”
Another OF said, “Let’s go back to Texas and say a guy from Texas did use the Thruway to go from Albany to Schenectady and the toll is 30 cents. The guy returns to Texas and receives a bill for 30 cents from New York. Does this make any sense?”
Years ago in business an average cost to send out an invoice was about $25. This cost might have gone down some with most businesses using computers, but the OF’s guess was, not much.
“The envelope, and paper, the personal time, the postage, let alone part of a tree that was cut down to make the paper,” the OF added. “You can see where this is going.”
An OF piped up, “I thought the Thruway was supposed to be free in the ’70s; at least that is what those lying ‘Bs’ in Albany told us when they went after the money to build it.”
To which a second OF responded, “Whoever told you it was possible to trust anyone from that brood of crooks in Albany?”
Helping a bobcat baby
An OF told a cute story that happened to him between breakfasts. He did relate the time and day but this scribe did not catch that information, but it doesn’t make any difference to the story.
When this OF pulled into his driveway, he noticed a small cat with a trap attached to its paw. The cat turned out to be a bobcat kitten.
The OF said he was a little leery of approaching the kitten but it didn’t react violently when he did. The OF said he still was not going to handle that cat without some protection so he went to the garage and came back with a fish net and put it over the kitten, which he said made no attempt to run away.
The OF said he let the paw with the trap on it stick out from the rim of the net and he pushed the trap open then pulled the cat’s paw away from the trap.
The OF then carefully lifted the net and the little thing scurried off into the woods by his home, apparently none the worse for wear. The OF said all the time he was doing this he was looking around for mama cat to come bounding out of the woods but that never happened.
Country roads
The roads in the Hilltowns are not super highways — they are country roads whether they are state, county, or town roads. These roads in the Hilltowns are full of surprises. Unexpected sharp turns, very short sight distances on hills, and some of these same turns along with some really bad intersections.
One in particular is where County Route 1 (Switzkill Road ) crosses State Route 443 just west of Berne. The OMOTM will not use this intersection. They drive all around Cock Robin’s barn to avoid it.
The OFs talked about another serious motorcycle accident in the Hilltowns and it was at this intersection.
One OF said, “Going onto country roads is not the place to say, ‘We are in the country, we can throw out our trash, and go like the devil, no one is around.’ Big whoop, there are lots of things around other than sharp turns and blind intersections. There are deer, horses, cows, turkeys, the occasional pig, and sheep. These animals all think the road is theirs.”
The Old Men of the Mountain who know the country roads and made it to the Your Way Café in Schoharie safely, were: Miner Stevens, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Roger Chapman, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Bill Lichliter, Bill Bartholomew, Dave Williams, Pete Whitbeck, Roger Shaver, Chuck Aelesio, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Otis Lawyer, Joe Rack, Ray Donnelly, Herb Sawotka, Bob Benac, Herb Bahrmann, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Mace Porter, Wayne Gaul, Ted Feurer, Jake Lederman, Gerry Chartier, Mike Willsey, Elwood Vanderbilt, Rich Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.