Tying Up Some Loose Ends: Some recent Road Warrior columns about traffic signals that won’t detect waiting motorcycles, litter blowing out of garbage trucks and knowing whether your toll-collection responder for the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge is working brought some followups you should know about.
Tying Up Some Loose Ends: Some recent Road Warrior columns about
traffic signals that won’t detect waiting motorcycles, litter
blowing out of garbage trucks and knowing whether your
toll-collection responder for the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge is
working brought some followups you should know about.
Gary Timm, a Northern California motorcyclist who happened to be in
this area when we discussed on Jan. 15 how a large magnet on the
bottom of a motorcycle will help balky traffic signals recognize
the ‘cycle, passed along another strategy overcoming that
problem
He shuts off his engine while waiting, he said, then restarts it.
The signals in-pavement detectors detect the resulting electrical
field and change the light, he said.
Vickie Bushnell of Kitsap County Public Works’ solid waste division
read the May 9 column about litter blowing out of garbage trucks,
and had this to add:
“Residents can help keep down the amount of loose litter that
escapes garbage trucks. Here’s how: Always put your garbage in a
plastic bag and tie it off before placing it into your garbage can
or dumpster. Resist throwing ‘one more loose thing’ into the
garbage can. That way, only tied off bags are added to the
truck.
“Another way to keep litter off our roads is to make sure the lid
is tightly secured on your garbage can or dumpster. It not only
reduces litter from being tipped over or broken into by animals,
but also when the garbage truck picks it up.”
More information on ways you can help prevent roadside litter and
clean it up is online at www.kitsapgov.com/sw/.
Janet Matkin of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge electronic toll
collection program Good to Go! says drivers such as Scott Minard,
subject of Wednesday’s column, who worry about not learning that
their windshield transponder isn’t working until they get a
citation in the mail, can find out later this month, when the
overhead readers in the through lanes approaching the bridge start
detecting crossings. No money will be deducted from the Good to Go!
accounts until the new bridge is open, but each detected crossing
will be shown on the car owner’s account. Transponder owners can
check their accounts online to make sure the crossings shown square
with what they have done.
What? Now it’s MY responsibility to ensure garbage doesn’t fly out of garbage trucks once the garbage is in THEIR custody? We already have the garbage Nazis telling us what we can and can’t throw away in infinite detail. Now you want everything in a PLASTIC (non-bio-degradable) bag? Ludicrous. Once that garbage gets dumped from my can to your garbage truck, it is your problem. I paid you to haul it away. Deal with it.
RE: Scott Minard’s inquiry about penalties for faulty transponders. I had asked the same question on line at the Good To Go! website. The reponse I got was that there are photo cameras that will be recording the front and rear license plates of each vehicle. If your transponder isn’t working, the company can cross reference any compaints with the photos. If a penalty was assessed it will be reversed.
That’s one reason it will be so important to notify the proper authorities if you want to move a transponder from one vehicle to another: the information on the transponder must match vehicle and license plate.