Special driving privileges

How many private cars, trucks and other vehicles would you guess are registered confidentially in California, able to escape parking tickets, toll road fees and those red light cameras? Would you believe 996,716, according to the Orange County Register. Originally designed to keep law enforcement officers safe from crooks, the list has been expanded to include politicians and almost anybody with connections it seems: "hundreds of thousands of public employees – from police dispatchers to museum guards – who face little threat from the public. Their spouses and children can get the plates, too."

The Register used public records laws to obtain OCTA computer logs for the 91 Express Lanes and found 14,535 unpaid trips by motorists with confidential plates in the past five years. A Register analysis showed that was 3,722 separate vehicles, some running the toll road hundreds of times.

That's only about $29,500 in tolls, but under the penalty schedule set by state law, fines for chronic violators can reach $500 per toll, which would total more than $5 million for the confidential plate holders with multiple violations if they ignored warning notices. OCTA officials said that if they had been able to notify these people, they believe most would have paid before penalties ballooned.

Among the top violators on OCTA's list were Dwight and Michell Storay (he's a parole agent with the Department of Corrections), with 622 violations and Lenai and Arnold Carraway (she's an Orange County social worker), with 239 violations.

Another couple listed in the top three, Chino Police Department dispatcher Susie Stephen and her husband Mike, contacted OCTA and got the agency to admit it had made a mistake....Speaking through a corrections spokeswoman, Storay denied driving the toll roads without paying. He showed records indicating that he has a valid toll road account and said he had contacted the OCTA to settle the matter.

Cops say they routinely decline to issue traffic tickets to anyone with the special registration status. Reporter Jennifer Muir will be a guest on "Airtalk with Larry Mantle" today at 10 am on KPCC.