For the sake of six bucks, people are finding ways to beat the automatic toll collection machine at the trestle bridge over the Abitibi River in Iroquois Falls.
Riversedge Developments manages the bridge. CEO Justus Veldman says people have found a way to get the swing arm to raise and let two vehicles through at a time.
“People can piggyback,” he explains. “So they can go real close, back-to-back and the machine or the technology will thnk that it’s a trailer, and two cars will sneak by, one payment, for example.”
And then Veldman says this trick was caught on surveillance just the other day.
“And a car just literally drove right through the swing arm, broke the swing arm and broke the infrastructure around it.”
You can see the video here.
Veldman says he’ll prosecute that vehicle owner, and anyone else caught cheating or damaging the equipment.
The $6.00 toll goes to maintenance of the bridge, which provides access to former Abitibi timber land without having to go around via Cochrane.