Originally Posted by
garykung
BYOT - Bring your own tag.
Seriously if you want to avoid this, bringing your own tag is the only solution.
Even though I live in CA, I regularly travel to the east coast...and with all of the Mass Pike, all NYC bridges, etc. being EZPass-only, there's no longer the cash-pay alternative. I either pay this highway robbery from HTA, or I bring my own transponder.
Thankfully, the MA EZPass program does not charge a monthly fee and will allow anyone to sign up online with a valid credit card and auto-refill. They did not charge to mail me the transponder, and I just leave it in my work backpack. Then when I pick up a rental car, I simply log on to EZDriveMA (their EZPass Web site), add the rental car's license plate, make, model, and year on my account, and then mount my transponder on the windshield. (You can even specify that the vehicle you're adding is a rental, and specify the end date and time for the rental.) I figure that way I'm doubly covered -- if my transponder isn't read properly, then I've registered the plate.
I do wonder what would happen if I somehow ended up with a pay-by-plate charge instead of my own transponder being read, I've registered the plate with MA, and HTA has it on record from the rental company. But (knock on wood...) I haven't encountered that situation yet.