Truth to be said, no one likes feeding the tolls, but we all do, or at least most of us do, because Rodolfo Sanchez, a New York City taxi driver, managed to cross the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and enter the Midtown Tunnel without paying not once, not twice, but on more than four thousand separate occasions during a two-year period saving himself over $28,000 in tolls!
So, how did he do it? Well, it was easier than you think. According to authorities, the 69-year old cab driver simply “piggybacked” on cars directly in front of his cab evading the tolls between 2012 and 2014.
“He allegedly accomplished the thefts by each time tailgating the vehicle in front of his cab, thus allowing both vehicles to pass through the toll lane before the barrier came back down,” said District Attorney Richard Brown.
Even though he managed to pull off the trick for two years, Sanchez was eventually caught when MTA Bridges and Tunnels Director of E-Z Pass Maintenance Joseph Gugliero noticed that a previously reported lost E-Z Pass tag that had become invalid in September of 2011 “was regularly crossing the toll plazas of the RFK Bridge and the Midtown Tunnel between August 4, 2012, and April 16, 2014, without making a payment”.
The New York Times reported that, according to authorities, while the practice of tailgating vehicles to go through the toll lane before the barrier comes down is nothing new, “no single driver appeared to have ever been caught making quite so many free trips”.
Sanchez was charged with grand larceny, theft of service and criminal possession of stolen property.
By John Halas
Photo Credits: MTA NYC/Facebook