Since I test drive a different car each week, the EZ-pass has to come with me in each new vehicle, and rather than affix it to the windshield with a new plastic glue-velcro thing each week, I just keep it in the door and hold it up through any tolls in NJ, PA, upstate New York, over the George Washington Bridge, the Tappan Zee and anywhere else.
Except the Henry Hudson Bridge. For some reason, my pass isn't easily read there, so from time to time the gate fails to swing up and I must wait for an officer to come, swipe my pass manually and hand it back to me. Sometimes it happens to the car in front of me, too.
Sometimes The Man chews me out.
"You have to affix it to the windshield, or else it doesn't work," they say, threatening me with confiscation here and there.
I don't know what affixing to the windshield has to do with the device being read. I think they're making that up. I think the works at the Henry Hudson parkway toll aren't what they ought to be, and need to be examined. Why else, then, would my device work at all other bridges and crossings when merely holding it up?
In recent months, however, I've had no troubles at the HH crossing---and I haven't affixed.
Two weeks ago, however, I had a 2009 Mercedes Benz S550---big sedan--
and once again, the gate arms failed to rise at the Henry Hudson Bridge crossing.
Cop came over, took my pass and I expected the usual chewing-out and warning.
This cop told me that Mercedes-Benzes have steel in their windshield, and that I should hold the pass up to my sunroof glass and it would work just fine.
Naturally, the only response to give a copper who isn't going to ticket you is, "Yes, sir, thank you, sir, thank you for the information," and off I go.
But he was right.
For the S550 and the E320 Bluetech Diesel
I got the week after, holding the pass up to the sunroof did the trick.
Take heed, Benzes.
